Education
Infinity Instruct: Scaling Instruction Selection and Synthesis to Enhance Language Models
Li, Jijie, Du, Li, Zhao, Hanyu, Zhang, Bo-wen, Wang, Liangdong, Gao, Boyan, Liu, Guang, Lin, Yonghua
Large Language Models (LLMs) demonstrate strong performance in real-world applications, yet existing open-source instruction datasets often concentrate on narrow domains, such as mathematics or coding, limiting generalization and widening the gap with proprietary models. To bridge this gap, we introduce Infinity-Instruct, a high-quality instruction dataset designed to enhance both foundational and chat capabilities of LLMs through a two-phase pipeline. In Phase 1, we curate 7.4M high-quality foundational instructions (InfInstruct-F-7.4M) from over 100M samples using hybrid data selection techniques. In Phase 2, we synthesize 1.5M high-quality chat instructions (InfInstruct-G-1.5M) through a two-stage process involving instruction selection, evolution, and diagnostic filtering. We empirically evaluate Infinity-Instruct by fine-tuning several open-source models, including Mistral, LLaMA, Qwen, and Yi, and observe substantial performance gains across both foundational and instruction following benchmarks, consistently surpassing official instruction-tuned counterparts. Notably, InfInstruct-LLaMA3.1-70B outperforms GPT-4-0314 by 8.6\% on instruction following tasks while achieving comparable foundational performance. These results underscore the synergy between foundational and chat training and offer new insights into holistic LLM development. Our dataset\footnote{https://huggingface.co/datasets/BAAI/Infinity-Instruct} and codes\footnote{https://gitee.com/li-touch/infinity-instruct} have been publicly released.
Evolutionary Perspectives on the Evaluation of LLM-Based AI Agents: A Comprehensive Survey
Zhu, Jiachen, Zhu, Menghui, Rui, Renting, Shan, Rong, Zheng, Congmin, Chen, Bo, Xi, Yunjia, Lin, Jianghao, Liu, Weiwen, Tang, Ruiming, Yu, Yong, Zhang, Weinan
The advent of large language models (LLMs), such as GPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek, has significantly advanced natural language processing, giving rise to sophisticated chatbots capable of diverse language-related tasks. The transition from these traditional LLM chatbots to more advanced AI agents represents a pivotal evolutionary step. However, existing evaluation frameworks often blur the distinctions between LLM chatbots and AI agents, leading to confusion among researchers selecting appropriate benchmarks. To bridge this gap, this paper introduces a systematic analysis of current evaluation approaches, grounded in an evolutionary perspective. We provide a detailed analytical framework that clearly differentiates AI agents from LLM chatbots along five key aspects: complex environment, multi-source instructor, dynamic feedback, multi-modal perception, and advanced capability. Further, we categorize existing evaluation benchmarks based on external environments driving forces, and resulting advanced internal capabilities. For each category, we delineate relevant evaluation attributes, presented comprehensively in practical reference tables. Finally, we synthesize current trends and outline future evaluation methodologies through four critical lenses: environment, agent, evaluator, and metrics. Our findings offer actionable guidance for researchers, facilitating the informed selection and application of benchmarks in AI agent evaluation, thus fostering continued advancement in this rapidly evolving research domain.
Deontological Keyword Bias: The Impact of Modal Expressions on Normative Judgments of Language Models
Park, Bumjin, Lee, Jinsil, Choi, Jaesik
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly engaging in moral and ethical reasoning, where criteria for judgment are often unclear, even for humans. While LLM alignment studies cover many areas, one important yet underexplored area is how LLMs make judgments about obligations. This work reveals a strong tendency in LLMs to judge non-obligatory contexts as obligations when prompts are augmented with modal expressions such as must or ought to. We introduce this phenomenon as Deontological Keyword Bias (DKB). We find that LLMs judge over 90\% of commonsense scenarios as obligations when modal expressions are present. This tendency is consist across various LLM families, question types, and answer formats. To mitigate DKB, we propose a judgment strategy that integrates few-shot examples with reasoning prompts. This study sheds light on how modal expressions, as a form of linguistic framing, influence the normative decisions of LLMs and underscores the importance of addressing such biases to ensure judgment alignment.
Impact of Comments on LLM Comprehension of Legacy Code
Sabetto, Rock, Escamilla, Emily, Agarwal, Devesh, Kandwal, Sujay, Brunelle, Justin F., Rosen, Scott, Naik, Nitin, Thaker, Samruddhi, Scott, Eric O., Zimmer, Jacob, Madan, Amit, Sridharan, Arun, Wendt, Doug, Doyle, Michael, Glasz, Christopher, Phillips, Jasper, Macke, William, Diggs, Colin, Bartholf, Michael, Robin, Zachary, Ursino, Paul
Impact of Comments on LLM Comprehension of Legacy Code Rock Sabetto, Emily Escamilla, Devesh Agarwal, Sujay Kandwal, Dr. Justin F. Brunelle, Dr. Scott Rosen, Dr. Nitin Naik, Dr. Samruddhi Thaker, Dr. Eric O. Scott, Jacob Zimmer, Amit Madan, Arun Sridharan, Doug Wendt, Michael Doyle, Christopher Glasz, Jasper Phillips, William Macke, Colin Diggs, Michael Bartholf, Zachary Robin, and Paul Ursino The MITRE Corporation McLean, V A rsabetto@mitre.org Abstract --Large language models (LLMs) have been increasingly integrated into software engineering and maintenance tasks due to their high performance with software engineering tasks and robust understanding of modern programming languages. However, the ability of LLMs to comprehend code written with legacy languages remains a research gap challenged by real-world legacy systems lacking or containing inaccurate documentation that may impact LLM comprehension. T o assess LLM comprehension of legacy languages, there is a need for objective LLM evaluation. In order to objectively measure LLM comprehension of legacy languages, we need an efficient, quantitative evaluation method. We leverage multiple-choice question answering (MCQA), an emerging LLM evaluation methodology, to evaluate LLM comprehension of legacy code and the impact of comment prevalence and inaccurate comments. In this work, we present preliminary findings on the impact of documentation on LLM comprehension of legacy code and outline strategic objectives for future work.
Decomposability-Guaranteed Cooperative Coevolution for Large-Scale Itinerary Planning
Zhang, Ziyu, Xu, Peilan, Sun, Yuetong, Shi, Yuhui, Luo, Wenjian
--Large-scale itinerary planning is a variant of the traveling salesman problem, aiming to determine an optimal path that maximizes the collected points of interest (POIs) scores while minimizing travel time and cost, subject to travel duration constraints. This paper analyzes the decomposability of large-scale itinerary planning, proving that strict decomposability is difficult to satisfy, and introduces a weak decomposability definition based on a necessary condition, deriving the corresponding graph structures that fulfill this property. With decomposability guaranteed, we propose a novel multi-objective cooperative coevolutionary algorithm for large-scale itinerary planning, addressing the challenges of component imbalance and interactions. Specifically, we design a dynamic decomposition strategy based on the normalized fitness within each component, define optimization potential considering component scale and contribution, and develop a computational resource allocation strategy. Finally, we evaluate the proposed algorithm on a set of real-world datasets. Comparative experiments with state-of-the-art multi-objective itinerary planning algorithms demonstrate the superiority of our approach, with performance advantages increasing as the problem scale grows. Itinerary planning is a class of the orienteering problem, where a traveler aims to determine an optimal route within a city under given duration constraints, selecting a subset of points of interest (POIs) to maximize the total collected score [1]. It can be seen as a variant of the traveling salesman problem (TSP) and a combination of the knapsack problem and TSP [2]. As a real-world application, itinerary planning not only seeks to maximize the overall travel experience, i.e., the total collected score, but also considers objectives such as minimizing travel time and cost. This work is partly supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. BK20230419), the Natural Science Foundation of the Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China (Grant No. 23KJB520018) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. U23B2058). Wenjian Luo is with the School of Computer Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen 518055, Guangdong, China.
Can reasoning models comprehend mathematical problems in Chinese ancient texts? An empirical study based on data from Suanjing Shishu
Liu, Chang, Wang, Dongbo, liu, Liu, Zhao, Zhixiao
This study addresses the challenges in intelligent processing of Chinese ancient mathematical classics by constructing Guji_MATH, a benchmark for evaluating classical texts based on Suanjing Shishu. It systematically assesses the mathematical problem-solving capabilities of mainstream reasoning models under the unique linguistic constraints of classical Chinese. Through machine-assisted annotation and manual verification, 538 mathematical problems were extracted from 8 canonical texts, forming a structured dataset centered on the "Question-Answer-Solution" framework, supplemented by problem types and difficulty levels. Dual evaluation modes--closed-book (autonomous problem-solving) and open-book (reproducing classical solution methods)--were designed to evaluate the performance of six reasoning models on ancient Chinese mathematical problems. Results indicate that reasoning models can partially comprehend and solve these problems, yet their overall performance remains inferior to benchmarks on modern mathematical tasks. Enhancing models' classical Chinese comprehension and cultural knowledge should be prioritized for optimization. This study provides methodological support for mining mathematical knowledge from ancient texts and disseminating traditional culture, while offering new perspectives for evaluating cross-linguistic and cross-cultural capabilities of reasoning models.
ChemRxivQuest: A Curated Chemistry Question-Answer Database Extracted from ChemRxiv Preprints
Amiri, Mahmoud, Bocklitz, Thomas
The rapid expansion of chemistry literature poses significant challenges for researchers seeking to efficiently access domain-specific knowledge. To support advancements in chemistry-focused natural language processing (NLP), we present ChemRxivQuest, a curated dataset of 970 high-quality question-answer (QA) pairs derived from 155 ChemRxiv preprints across 17 subfields of chemistry. Each QA pair is explicitly linked to its source text segment to ensure traceability and contextual accuracy. ChemRxivQuest was constructed using an automated pipeline that combines optical character recognition (OCR), GPT-4o-based QA generation, and a fuzzy matching technique for answer verification. The dataset emphasizes conceptual, mechanistic, applied, and experimental questions, enabling applications in retrieval-based QA systems, search engine development, and fine-tuning of domain-adapted large language models. We analyze the dataset's structure, coverage, and limitations, and outline future directions for expansion and expert validation. ChemRxivQuest provides a foundational resource for chemistry NLP research, education, and tool development.
D-GEN: Automatic Distractor Generation and Evaluation for Reliable Assessment of Generative Model
Evaluating generative models with open-ended generation is challenging due to inconsistencies in response formats. Multiple-choice (MC) evaluation mitigates this issue, but generating high-quality distractors is time-consuming and labor-intensive. We introduce D-GEN, the first open-source distractor generator model that transforms open-ended data into an MC format. To evaluate distractor quality, we propose two novel methods: (1) ranking alignment, ensuring generated distractors retain the discriminatory power of ground-truth distractors, and (2) entropy analysis, comparing model confidence distributions. Our results show that D-GEN preserves ranking consistency (Spearman's rho 0.99, Kendall's tau 0.94) and closely matches the entropy distribution of ground-truth distractors. Human evaluation further confirms the fluency, coherence, distractiveness, and incorrectness. Our work advances robust and efficient distractor generation with automated evaluation, setting a new standard for MC evaluation.
Palpation Alters Auditory Pain Expressions with Gender-Specific Variations in Robopatients
Sirithunge, Chapa, Xie, Yue, Nadipineni, Saitarun, Iida, Fumiya, Lalitharatne, Thilina Dulantha
-- Diagnostic errors remain a major cause of preventable deaths, particularly in resource-limited regions. Medical training simulators, including robopatients, play a vital role in reducing these errors by mimicking real patients for procedural training such as palpation. However, generating multimodal feedback, especially auditory pain expressions, remains challenging due to the complex relationship between palpation behavior and sound. The high-dimensional nature of pain sounds makes exploration challenging with conventional methods. This study introduces a novel experimental paradigm for pain expressivity in robopatients where they dynamically generate auditory pain expressions in response to palpation force, by co-optimizing human feedback using machine learning. Using Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO), a reinforcement learning (RL) technique optimized for continuous adaptation, our robot iteratively refines pain sounds based on real-time human feedback. This robot initializes randomized pain responses to palpation forces, and the RL agent learns to adjust these sounds to align with human preferences. The results demonstrated that the system adapts to an individual's palpation forces and sound preferences and captures a broad spectrum of pain intensity, from mild discomfort to acute distress, through RL-guided exploration of the auditory pain space. The study further showed that pain sound perception exhibits saturation at lower forces with gender-specific thresholds. These findings highlight the system's potential to enhance abdominal palpation training by offering a controllable and immersive simulation platform. While specific statistics vary by region, diagnostic errors are a universal concern. Misdiagnoses may contribute to the nearly 7 million children who die each year from preventable causes, particularly in low-and middle-income countries [1]. These findings underscore the critical need for systemic improvements in diagnostic processes, enhanced communication among healthcare providers, and increased patient engagement to mitigate the risks associated with diagnostic errors. Palpation is one of the primary examination methods used by physicians to examine patients in various conditions ranging from simple abdominal pain to more serious conditions such as acute appendicitis and breast, soft tissue tumors.
Enter: Graduated Realism: A Pedagogical Framework for AI-Powered Avatars in Virtual Reality Teacher Training
Virtual Reality simulators offer a powerful tool for teacher training, yet the integration of AI-powered student avatars presents a critical challenge: determining the optimal level of avatar realism for effective pedagogy. This literature review examines the evolution of avatar realism in VR teacher training, synthesizes its theoretical implications, and proposes a new pedagogical framework to guide future design. Through a systematic review, this paper traces the progression from human-controlled avatars to generative AI prototypes. Applying learning theories like Cognitive Load Theory, we argue that hyper-realism is not always optimal, as high-fidelity avatars can impose excessive extraneous cognitive load on novices, a stance supported by recent empirical findings. A significant gap exists between the technological drive for photorealism and the pedagogical need for scaffolded learning. To address this gap, we propose Graduated Realism, a framework advocating for starting trainees with lower-fidelity avatars and progressively increasing behavioral complexity as skills develop. To make this computationally feasible, we outline a novel single-call architecture, Crazy Slots, which uses a probabilistic engine and a Retrieval-Augmented Generation database to generate authentic, real-time responses without the latency and cost of multi-step reasoning models. This review provides evidence-based principles for designing the next generation of AI simulators, arguing that a pedagogically grounded approach to realism is essential for creating scalable and effective teacher education tools.