Unsupervised Domain Adaptation (UDA) aims to transfer knowledge from a labeled source domain to an unlabeled target domain. Recent UDA methods based on Vision Transformers (ViTs) have achieved strong performance through attention-based feature alignment. However, we identify a key limitation: foreground object mismatch, where the discrepancy in foreground object size and spatial distribution across domains weakens attention consistency and hampers effective domain alignment. To address this issue, we propose the Progressive Focus Cross-Attention Mechanism (PCaM), which progressively filters out background information during cross-attention, allowing the model to focus on and fuse discriminative foreground semantics across domains. We further introduce an attentional guidance loss that explicitly directs attention toward task-relevant regions, enhancing cross-domain attention consistency. PCaM is lightweight, architecture-agnostic, and easy to integrate into existing ViT-based UDA pipelines. Extensive experiments on Office-Home, DomainNet, VisDA-2017, and remote sensing datasets demonstrate that PCaM significantly improves adaptation performance and achieves new state-of-the-art results, validating the effectiveness of attention-guided foreground fusion for domain adaptation.

Accurate mapping of agricultural field boundaries is essential for the efficient operation of agriculture. Automatic extraction from high-resolution satellite imagery, supported by computer vision techniques, can avoid costly ground surveys. In this paper, we present a pipeline for field delineation based on the Segment Anything Model (SAM), introducing a fine-tuning strategy to adapt SAM to this task. In addition to using published datasets, we describe a method for acquiring a complementary regional dataset that covers areas beyond current sources. Extensive experiments assess segmentation accuracy and evaluate the generalization capabilities. Our approach provides a robust baseline for automated field delineation. The new regional dataset, known as ERAS, is now publicly available.

Low - rank representat i on learn ing ha s emerged as a powerful tool for recoverin g missing values i n power load data due to its ability to exploit the inherent low - dimensional structures of spatiotemporal measurements. Among various techniques, low - rank factorization models are f a vou red f o r t he ir efficiency and interpretability . Howeve r, their performan ce is highly sensitive to the choice of regularization parameter s, which are typically fixed or manually tuned, resulting in limited generalization capability or slow convergenc e in pra ctica l sc en arios. In this paper, we propo se a Regular ization - optimized Low - Rank Factorization, which introduces a Proportional - Integral - Derivative controller to adaptively adju st the regularization coefficient . Furthe rmore, we provide a detailed algori t hmi c com plex i t y analysis, showing that our method preser ves the computatio nal efficiency of stochastic gradient descent while improving ad aptivity. Experimental results on real - world power load datasets validate the superiority of our method in both imput a tio n acc urac y and training efficiency compared to existi ng baselines.

Embodied artificial intelligence (Embodied AI) plays a pivotal role in the application of advanced technologies in the intelligent era, where AI systems are integrated with physical bodies that enable them to perceive, reason, and interact with their environments. Through the use of sensors for input and actuators for action, these systems can learn and adapt based on real-world feedback, allowing them to perform tasks effectively in dynamic and unpredictable environments. As techniques such as deep learning (DL), reinforcement learning (RL), and large language models (LLMs) mature, embodied AI has become a leading field in both academia and industry, with applications spanning robotics, healthcare, transportation, and manufacturing. However, most research has focused on single-agent systems that often assume static, closed environments, whereas real-world embodied AI must navigate far more complex scenarios. In such settings, agents must not only interact with their surroundings but also collaborate with other agents, necessitating sophisticated mechanisms for adaptation, real-time learning, and collaborative problem-solving. Despite increasing interest in multi-agent systems, existing research remains narrow in scope, often relying on simplified models that fail to capture the full complexity of dynamic, open environments for multi-agent embodied AI. Moreover, no comprehensive survey has systematically reviewed the advancements in this area. As embodied AI rapidly evolves, it is crucial to deepen our understanding of multi-agent embodied AI to address the challenges presented by real-world applications. To fill this gap and foster further development in the field, this paper reviews the current state of research, analyzes key contributions, and identifies challenges and future directions, providing insights to guide innovation and progress in this field.

--This paper proposes a novel method of coverage path planning for the purpose of scanning an unstructured environment autonomously. The method uses the morphological skeleton of the prior 2D navigation map via SLAM to generate a sequence of points of interest (POIs). This sequence is then ordered to create an optimal path given the robot's current position. T o control the high-level operation, a finite state machine is used to switch between two modes: navigating towards a POI using Nav2, and scanning the local surroundings. We validate the method in a leveled indoor obstacle-free non-convex environment on time efficiency and reachability over five trials. The map reader and the path planner can quickly process maps of width and height ranging between [196,225] pixels and [185,231] pixels in 2. 52 ms and 1 . The robot managed to reach 86. 5 % of all waypoints over all five runs. The proposed method suffers from drift occurring in the 2D navigation map. Due to advancements in technology and miniaturization, in the past decade surface (or ground) robots, such as wheeled and legged robots, have been increasingly adopted for diverse operations in harsh and unstructured environments. One of the key challenges in such environments is that the infrastructure to support diverse operations does not readily exist. These environments include, for example, disaster response [1], [2], [3], mining operations [4], [5], space exploration [6], [7], [8], [9], surveillance in remote locations [10], [11], or hazardous industries like nuclear power plant maintenance [12], [13]. In such complex environments, legged robots are more versatile and robust compared to wheeled robots than other surface robots such as wheeled rovers, and can adaptively navigate uneven, rugged, or soft terrain. Legged robots can cover relatively larger spatial areas by choosing safe footholds within their range of motion and rapidly responding to adjust their kinematic configuration [14] to achieve their objectives. The number of legs in a legged robot determines its movement efficiency and ability to maintain stability [15]. The source code is open source and is available at: https://github.com/ On the other hand, quadrupeds possess simpler structures and control mechanisms than hexapodal and octopodal robots [16], [17]. For this reason, quadruped robots are ideal for tasks involving safe navigation of complex 3D environments for (sub-)surface exploration.

The increasingly challenging task of maintaining power grid security requires innovative solutions. Novel approaches using reinforcement learning (RL) agents have been proposed to help grid operators navigate the massive decision space and nonlinear behavior of these complex networks. However, applying RL to power grid security assessment, specifically for combinatorially troublesome contingency analysis problems, has proven difficult to scale. The integration of quantum computing into these RL frameworks helps scale by improving computational efficiency and boosting agent proficiency by leveraging quantum advantages in action exploration and model-based interdependence. To demonstrate a proof-of-concept use of quantum computing for RL agent training and simulation, we propose a hybrid agent that runs on quantum hardware using IBM's Qiskit Runtime. We also provide detailed insight into the construction of parameterized quantum circuits (PQCs) for generating relevant quantum output. This agent's proficiency at maintaining grid stability is demonstrated relative to a benchmark model without quantum enhancement using N-k contingency analysis. Additionally, we offer a comparative assessment of the training procedures for RL models integrated with a quantum backend.

We introduce a new dataset and algorithm for fast and efficient coastal distance calculations from Anywhere on Earth (AoE). Existing global coastal datasets are only available at coarse resolution (e.g. 1-4 km) which limits their utility. Publicly available satellite imagery combined with computer vision enable much higher precision. We provide a global coastline dataset at 10 meter resolution, a 100+ fold improvement in precision over existing data. To handle the computational challenge of querying at such an increased scale, we introduce a new library: Layered Iterative Geospatial Hierarchical Terrain-Oriented Unified Search Engine (Lighthouse). Lighthouse is both exceptionally fast and resource-efficient, requiring only 1 CPU and 2 GB of RAM to achieve millisecond online inference, making it well suited for real-time applications in resource-constrained environments.

Density Functional Theory (DFT) is the most widely used electronic structure method for predicting the properties of molecules and materials. Although DFT is, in principle, an exact reformulation of the Schrödinger equation, practical applications rely on approximations to the unknown exchange-correlation (XC) functional. Most existing XC functionals are constructed using a limited set of increasingly complex, hand-crafted features that improve accuracy at the expense of computational efficiency. Yet, no current approximation achieves the accuracy and generality for predictive modeling of laboratory experiments at chemical accuracy -- typically defined as errors below 1 kcal/mol. In this work, we present Skala, a modern deep learning-based XC functional that bypasses expensive hand-designed features by learning representations directly from data. Skala achieves chemical accuracy for atomization energies of small molecules while retaining the computational efficiency typical of semi-local DFT. This performance is enabled by training on an unprecedented volume of high-accuracy reference data generated using computationally intensive wavefunction-based methods. Notably, Skala systematically improves with additional training data covering diverse chemistry. By incorporating a modest amount of additional high-accuracy data tailored to chemistry beyond atomization energies, Skala achieves accuracy competitive with the best-performing hybrid functionals across general main group chemistry, at the cost of semi-local DFT. As the training dataset continues to expand, Skala is poised to further enhance the predictive power of first-principles simulations.

Inverse design of photonic integrated circuits (PICs) has traditionally relied on gradient-based optimization. However, this approach is prone to end up in local minima, which results in suboptimal design functionality. As interest in PICs increases due to their potential for addressing modern hardware demands through optical computing, more adaptive optimization algorithms are needed. We present a reinforcement learning (RL) environment as well as multi-agent RL algorithms for the design of PICs. By discretizing the design space into a grid, we formulate the design task as an optimization problem with thousands of binary variables. We consider multiple two-and three-dimensional design tasks that represent PIC components for an optical computing system. By decomposing the design space into thousands of individual agents, our algorithms are able to optimize designs with only a few thousand environment samples. They outperform previous state-of-the-art gradient-based optimization in both two-and three-dimensional design tasks. Our work may also serve as a benchmark for further exploration of sample-efficient RL for inverse design in photonics.

The reliance on distributed renewable energy has increased recently. As a result, power electronic-based distributed generators replaced synchronous generators which led to a change in the dynamic characteristics of the microgrid. Most critically, they reduced system inertia and damping. Virtual synchronous generators emulated in power electronics, which mimic the dynamic behaviour of synchronous generators, are meant to fix this problem. However, fixed virtual synchronous generator parameters cannot guarantee a frequency regulation within the acceptable tolerance range. Conversely, a dynamic adjustment of these virtual parameters promises robust solution with stable frequency. This paper proposes a method to adapt the inertia, damping, and droop parameters dynamically through a fuzzy neural network controller. This controller trains itself online to choose appropriate values for these virtual parameters. The proposed method can be applied to a typical AC microgrid by considering the penetration and impact of renewable energy sources. We study the system in a MATLAB/Simulink model and validate it experimentally in real time using hardware-in-the-loop based on an embedded ARM system (SAM3X8E, Cortex-M3). Compared to traditional and fuzzy logic controller methods, the results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly reduces the frequency deviation to less than 0.03 Hz and shortens the stabilizing/recovery time.