--Transient stability prediction is critically essential to the fast online assessment and maintaining the stable operation in power systems. The wide deployment of phasor measurement units (PMUs) promotes the development of data-driven approaches for transient stability assessment. This paper proposes the temporal and topological embedding deep neural network (TTEDNN) model to forecast transient stability with the early transient dynamics. The TTEDNN model can accurately and efficiently predict the transient stability by extracting the temporal and topological features from the time-series data of the early transient dynamics. The grid-informed adjacency matrix is used to incorporate the power grid structural and electrical parameter information. The transient dynamics simulation environments under the single-node and multiple-node perturbations are used to test the performance of the TTEDNN model for the IEEE 39-bus and IEEE 118-bus power systems. The results show that the TTEDNN model has the best and most robust prediction performance. Furthermore, the TTEDNN model also demonstrates the transfer capability to predict the transient stability in the more complicated transient dynamics simulation environments.

Decentralized combinatorial optimization in evolving multi-agent systems poses significant challenges, requiring agents to balance long-term decision-making, short-term optimized collective outcomes, while preserving autonomy of interactive agents under unanticipated changes. Reinforcement learning offers a way to model sequential decision-making through dynamic programming to anticipate future environmental changes. However, applying multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) to decentralized combinatorial optimization problems remains an open challenge due to the exponential growth of the joint state-action space, high communication overhead, and privacy concerns in centralized training. To address these limitations, this paper proposes Hierarchical Reinforcement and Collective Learning (HRCL), a novel approach that leverages both MARL and decentralized collective learning based on a hierarchical framework. Agents take high-level strategies using MARL to group possible plans for action space reduction and constrain the agent behavior for Pareto optimality. Meanwhile, the low-level collective learning layer ensures efficient and decentralized coordinated decisions among agents with minimal communication. Extensive experiments in a synthetic scenario and real-world smart city application models, including energy self-management and drone swarm sensing, demonstrate that HRCL significantly improves performance, scalability, and adaptability compared to the standalone MARL and collective learning approaches, achieving a win-win synthesis solution.

Abstract--End-to-end reinforcement learning (RL) for humanoid locomotion is appealing for its compact perception-action mapping, yet practical policies often suffer from training instability, inefficient feature fusion, and high actuation cost. We present HuMam, a state-centric end-to-end RL framework that employs a single-layer Mamba encoder to fuse robot-centric states with oriented footstep targets and a continuous phase clock. The policy outputs joint position targets tracked by a low-level PD loop and is optimized with PPO. On the JVRC-1 humanoid in mc-mujoco, HuMam consistently improves learning efficiency, training stability, and overall task performance over a strong feedforward baseline, while reducing power consumption and torque peaks. T o our knowledge, this is the first end-to-end humanoid RL controller that adopts Mamba as the fusion backbone, demonstrating tangible gains in efficiency, stability, and control economy. UMANOID locomotion demands controllers that are both foresightful and resource-aware: foresightful to coordinate accurate foot placement and whole-body balance, and resource-aware to run reliably under onboard compute and actuation limits [1]. End-to-end reinforcement learning (RL) is attractive because it can discover feedback strategies directly from interaction [2]; however, its effectiveness hinges on (i) how heterogeneous inputs are fused and (ii) how training is shaped to avoid trivial or unstable behaviors.

Combining multimodal data is a key issue in a wide range of machine learning tasks, including many remote sensing problems. In Earth observation, early multimodal data fusion methods were based on specific neural network architectures and supervised learning. Ever since, the scarcity of labeled data has motivated self-supervised learning techniques. State-of-the-art multimodal representation learning techniques leverage the spatial alignment between satellite data from different modalities acquired over the same geographic area in order to foster a semantic alignment in the latent space. In this paper, we investigate how this methods can preserve task-relevant information that is not shared across modalities. First, we show, under simplifying assumptions, when alignment strategies fundamentally lead to an information loss. Then, we support our theoretical insight through numerical experiments in more realistic settings. With those theoretical and empirical evidences, we hope to support new developments in contrastive learning for the combination of multimodal satellite data. Our code and data is publicly available at https://github.com/Romain3Ch216/alg_maclean_25.

In many robotic systems where dynamics are best modeled as stochastic systems due to factors such as sensing noise and environmental disturbances, it is challenging for conventional methods such as Hamilton-Jacobi reachability and control barrier functions to provide a holistic measure of safety. We derive a linear operator governing the dynamic programming principle for safety probability, and find that its dominant eigenpair provides information about safety for both individual states and the overall closed-loop system. The proposed learning framework, called EigenSafe, jointly learns this dominant eigenpair and a safe backup policy in an offline manner. The learned eigenfunction is then used to construct a safety filter that detects potentially unsafe situations and falls back to the backup policy. The framework is validated in three simulated stochastic safety-critical control tasks.

Accurate battery modeling is essential for reliable state estimation in modern applications, such as predicting the remaining discharge time and remaining discharge energy in battery management systems. Existing approaches face several limitations: model-based methods require a large number of parameters; data-driven methods rely heavily on labeled datasets; and current physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) often lack aging adaptation, or still depend on many parameters, or continuously regenerate states. In this work, we propose SeqBattNet, a discrete-state PINN with built-in aging adaptation for battery modeling, to predict terminal voltage during the discharge process. SeqBattNet consists of two components: (i) an encoder, implemented as the proposed HRM-GRU deep learning module, which generates cycle-specific aging adaptation parameters; and (ii) a decoder, based on the equivalent circuit model (ECM) combined with deep learning, which uses these parameters together with the input current to predict voltage. The model requires only three basic battery parameters and, when trained on data from a single cell, still achieves robust performance. Extensive evaluations across three benchmark datasets (TRI, RT-Batt, and NASA) demonstrate that SeqBattNet significantly outperforms classical sequence models and PINN baselines, achieving consistently lower RMSE while maintaining computational efficiency.

In professional settings, translation is guided by communicative goals and client needs, often formalized as specifications. While existing evaluation frameworks acknowledge the importance of such specifications, these specifications are often treated only implicitly in machine translation (MT) research. Drawing on translation studies, we provide a theoretical rationale for why specifications matter in professional translation, as well as a practical guide to implementing specification-aware MT and evaluation. Building on this foundation, we apply our framework to the translation of investor relations texts from 33 publicly listed companies. In our experiment, we compare five translation types, including official human translations and prompt-based outputs from large language models (LLMs), using expert error analysis, user preference rankings, and an automatic metric. The results show that LLM translations guided by specifications consistently outperformed official human translations in human evaluations, highlighting a gap between perceived and expected quality. These findings demonstrate that integrating specifications into MT workflows, with human oversight, can improve translation quality in ways aligned with professional practice.

Abstract-- While 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) has revolutionized photorealistic rendering, its vast ecosystem of assets remains incompatible with high-performance LiDAR simulation, a critical tool for robotics and autonomous driving. Our method converts any pretrained 3DGS model into a high-fidelity, watertight mesh without requiring LiDAR-specific supervision or architectural alterations. We pair this with a highly optimized, GPU-accelerated ray-casting module that simulates LiDAR returns at over 500 FPS. We validate our approach on indoor and outdoor scenes, demonstrating exceptional geometric fidelity; By enabling the direct reuse of 3DGS assets for geometrically accurate depth sensing, our framework extends their utility beyond visualization and unlocks new capabilities for scalable, multi-modal simulation. I. INTRODUCTION LiDAR is a cornerstone modality for 3D perception, underpinning autonomous driving, localization, odometry, mapping, and indoor navigation [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. To mitigate the prohibitive expense and logistical challenges of curating large-scale real-world datasets, simulation offers a controllable and reproducible source of data for training and benchmarking perception algorithms.

Abstract-- Robotics and automation are key enablers to increase throughput in ongoing conservation efforts across various threatened ecosystems. Cataloguing, digitisation, husbandry, and similar activities require the ability to interact with delicate, fragile samples without damaging them. Additionally, learning-based solutions to these tasks require the ability to safely acquire data to train manipulation policies through, e.g., reinforcement learning. T o address these twin needs, we introduce a novel method to print free-form, highly sensorised soft'physical twins'. We present an automated design workflow to create complex and customisable 3D soft sensing structures on demand from 3D scans or models. Compared to the state of the art, our soft liquid metal sensors faithfully recreate complex natural geometries and display excellent sensing properties suitable for validating performance in delicate manipulation tasks. We demonstrate the application of our physical twins as'sensing corals': high-fidelity, 3D printed replicas of scanned corals that eliminate the need for live coral experimentation, whilst increasing data quality, offering an ethical and scalable pathway for advancing autonomous coral handling and soft manipulation broadly. Through extensive bench-top manipulation and underwater grasping experiments, we show that our sensing coral is able to detect grasps under 0.5 N, effectively capturing the delicate interactions and light contact forces required for coral handling. Finally, we showcase the value of our physical twins across two demonstrations: (i) automated coral labelling for lab identification and (ii) robotic coral aquaculture. Sensing physical twins such as ours can provide richer grasping feedback than conventional sensors providing experimental validation of prior to deployment in handling fragile and delicate items.

Abstract-- The complex nonlinear dynamics of hydraulic excavators, such as time delays and control coupling, pose significant challenges to achieving high-precision trajectory tracking. Traditional control methods often fall short in such applications due to their inability to effectively handle these nonlinearities, while commonly used learning-based methods require extensive interactions with the environment, leading to inefficiency. T o address these issues, we introduce EfficientTrack, a trajectory tracking method that integrates model-based learning to manage nonlinear dynamics and leverages closed-loop dynamics to improve learning efficiency, ultimately minimizing tracking errors. Comparative experiments in simulation demonstrate that our method outperforms existing learning-based approaches, achieving the highest tracking precision and smoothness with the fewest interactions. Real-world experiments further show that our method remains effective under load conditions and possesses the ability for continual learning, highlighting its practical applicability. Excavators are primarily used in earthworks, mining, and construction projects, playing a vital role in tasks such as digging, loading, trenching, and leveling [1], [2], [3].