Recent advances in deep learning have revolutionized seismic monitoring, yet developing a foundation model that performs well across multiple complex tasks remains challenging, particularly when dealing with degraded signals or data scarcity. This work presents SeisMoLLM, the first foundation model that utilizes cross-modal transfer for seismic monitoring, to unleash the power of large-scale pre-training from a large language model without requiring direct pre-training on seismic datasets. Through elaborate waveform tokenization and fine-tuning of pre-trained GPT-2 model, SeisMoLLM achieves state-of-the-art performance on the DiTing and STEAD datasets across five critical tasks: back-azimuth estimation, epicentral distance estimation, magnitude estimation, phase picking, and first-motion polarity classification. It attains 36 best results out of 43 task metrics and 12 top scores out of 16 few-shot generalization metrics, with many relative improvements ranging from 10% to 50%. In addition to its superior performance, SeisMoLLM maintains efficiency comparable to or even better than lightweight models in both training and inference. These findings establish SeisMoLLM as a promising foundation model for practical seismic monitoring and highlight cross-modal transfer as an exciting new direction for earthquake studies, showcasing the potential of advanced deep learning techniques to propel seismology research forward.

Inspired by the recent successes of Inverse Optimization (IO) across various application domains, we propose a novel offline Reinforcement Learning (ORL) algorithm for continuous state and action spaces, leveraging the convex loss function called ``sub-optimality loss" from the IO literature. To mitigate the distribution shift commonly observed in ORL problems, we further employ a robust and non-causal Model Predictive Control (MPC) expert steering a nominal model of the dynamics using in-hindsight information stemming from the model mismatch. Unlike the existing literature, our robust MPC expert enjoys an exact and tractable convex reformulation. In the second part of this study, we show that the IO hypothesis class, trained by the proposed convex loss function, enjoys ample expressiveness and achieves competitive performance comparing with the state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods in the low-data regime of the MuJoCo benchmark while utilizing three orders of magnitude fewer parameters, thereby requiring significantly fewer computational resources. To facilitate the reproducibility of our results, we provide an open-source package implementing the proposed algorithms and the experiments.

To maximize palm oil yield and quality, it is essential to harvest palm fruit at the optimal maturity stage. This project aims to develop an automated computer vision system capable of accurately classifying palm fruit images into five ripeness levels. We employ deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to classify palm fruit images based on their maturity stage. A shallow CNN serves as the baseline model, while transfer learning and fine-tuning are applied to pre-trained ResNet50 and InceptionV3 architectures. The study utilizes a publicly available dataset of over 8,000 images with significant variations, which is split into 80\% for training and 20\% for testing. The proposed deep CNN models achieve test accuracies exceeding 85\% in classifying palm fruit maturity stages. This research highlights the potential of deep learning for automating palm fruit ripeness assessment, which can contribute to optimizing harvesting decisions and improving palm oil production efficiency.

This paper presents the development and application of a Large Language Model Retrieval-Augmented Generation (LLM-RAG) system tailored for nanotechnology research. The system leverages the capabilities of a sophisticated language model to serve as an intelligent research assistant, enhancing the efficiency and comprehensiveness of literature reviews in the nanotechnology domain. Central to this LLM-RAG system is its advanced query backend retrieval mechanism, which integrates data from multiple reputable sources. The system retrieves relevant literature by utilizing Google Scholar's advanced search, and scraping open-access papers from Elsevier, Springer Nature, and ACS Publications. This multifaceted approach ensures a broad and diverse collection of up-to-date scholarly articles and papers. The proposed system demonstrates significant potential in aiding researchers by providing a streamlined, accurate, and exhaustive literature retrieval process, thereby accelerating research advancements in nanotechnology. The effectiveness of the LLM-RAG system is validated through rigorous testing, illustrating its capability to significantly reduce the time and effort required for comprehensive literature reviews, while maintaining high accuracy, query relevance and outperforming standard, publicly available LLMS.

A novel autonomous chunk-based aerial additive manufacturing framework is presented, supported with experimental demonstration advancing aerial 3D printing. An optimization-based decomposition algorithm transforms structures into sub-components, or chunks, treated as individual tasks coordinated via a dependency graph, ensuring sequential assignment to UA Vs considering inter-dependencies and printability constraints for seamless execution. A specially designed hexacopter equipped with a pressurized canister for lightweight expandable foam extrusion is utilized to deposit the material in a controlled manner. To further enhance precise execution of the printing, an offset-free Model Predictive Control mechanism is considered compensating reactively for disturbances and ground effect during execution. Additionally, an interlocking mechanism is introduced in the chunking process to enhance structural cohesion and improve layer adhesion. Extensive experiments demonstrate the framework's effectiveness in constructing precise structures of various shapes, while seamlessly adapting to practical challenges, proving its potential for a transformative leap in aerial robotic capability for autonomous construction. A video with the overall demonstration can be found here: https://youtu.be/WC1rLMLKEg4. Preprint submitted to Journal of Automation In Construction February 27, 2025 1. Introduction In recent times, ground breaking advancement in additive manufacturing, seamlessly integrated with autonomous robotics, are unlocking an exciting frontier in next generation construction and manufacturing process. Additive manufacturing has demonstrated a paradigm shift impact, addressing complex manufacturing processes with unprecedented precision and efficiency. Its transformative potential is becoming increasingly evident as it evolves and finds applications across a wide range of industries [1, 2, 3], while simultaneously paving the way for further innovations in the future. An intriguing development is its recent integration into the construction industry, capitalizing on its ability to automate construction processes, provide extensive design flexibility, and construct intricate structures designed using Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software [4, 5]. Numerous studies have demonstrated the design and deployment of large-scale robotic arms and gantry systems for printing building components and even entire houses using a variety of base materials [6]. A key advantage of such methods is their ability to adapt with high level of automation throughout the construction process, making them particularly well-suited for deployment in remote, inaccessible, and harsh environments[7, 8]. Notable examples include disaster-stricken areas, such as regions impacted by fires and earthquakes, where the rapid construction of shelters and basic infrastructure is imperative.

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) based localization has gained significant recognition in robotics due to its ability to detect stable subsurface features, offering advantages in environments where traditional sensors like cameras and LiDAR may struggle. However, existing methods are primarily focused on small-scale place recognition (PR), leaving the challenges of PR in large-scale maps unaddressed. These challenges include the inherent sparsity of underground features and the variability in underground dielectric constants, which complicate robust localization. In this work, we investigate the geometric relationship between GPR echo sequences and underground scenes, leveraging the robustness of directional features to inform our network design. We introduce learn-able Gabor filters for the precise extraction of directional responses, coupled with a direction-aware attention mechanism for effective geometric encoding. To further enhance performance, we incorporate a shift-invariant unit and a multi-scale aggregation strategy to better accommodate variations in dielectric constants. Experiments conducted on public datasets demonstrate that our proposed EDENet not only surpasses existing solutions in terms of PR performance but also offers advantages in model size and computational efficiency.

Inflation prediction guides decisions on interest rates, investments, and wages, playing a key role in economic stability. Yet accurate forecasting is challenging due to dynamic factors and the layered structure of the Consumer Price Index, which organizes goods and services into multiple categories. We propose the Bi-directional Hierarchical Recurrent Neural Network (BiHRNN) model to address these challenges by leveraging the hierarchical structure to enable bidirectional information flow between levels. Informative constraints on the RNN parameters enhance predictive accuracy at all levels without the inefficiencies of a unified model. We validated BiHRNN on inflation datasets from the United States, Canada, and Norway by training, tuning hyperparameters, and experimenting with various loss functions. Our results demonstrate that BiHRNN significantly outperforms traditional RNN models, with its bidirectional architecture playing a pivotal role in achieving improved forecasting accuracy.

In recent years, there has been significant development of autonomous vehicle (AV) technologies. However, despite the notable achievements of some industry players, a strong and appealing body of evidence that demonstrate AVs are actually safe is lacky, which could foster public distrust in this technology and further compromise the entire development of this industry, as well as related social impacts. To improve the safety of AVs, several techniques are proposed that use synthetic data in virtual simulation. In particular, the highest risk data, known as corner cases (CCs), are the most valuable for developing and testing AV controls, as they can expose and improve the weaknesses of these autonomous systems. In this context, the present paper presents a systematic literature review aiming to comprehensively analyze methodologies for CC identifi cation and generation, also pointing out current gaps and further implications of synthetic data for AV safety and reliability. Based on a selection criteria, 110 studies were picked from an initial sample of 1673 papers. These selected paper were mapped into multiple categories to answer eight inter-linked research questions. It concludes with the recommendation of a more integrated approach focused on safe development among all stakeholders, with active collaboration between industry, academia and regulatory bodies.

In open-world remote sensing, deployed models must continuously adapt to a steady influx of new data, which often exhibits various shifts compared to what the model encountered during the training phase. To effectively handle the new data, models are required to detect semantic shifts, adapt to covariate shifts, and continuously update themselves. These challenges give rise to a variety of open-world tasks. However, existing open-world remote sensing studies typically train and test within a single dataset to simulate open-world conditions. Currently, there is a lack of large-scale benchmarks capable of evaluating multiple open-world tasks. In this paper, we introduce OpenEarthSensing, a large-scale fine-grained benchmark for open-world remote sensing. OpenEarthSensing includes 189 scene and objects categories, covering the vast majority of potential semantic shifts that may occur in the real world. Additionally, OpenEarthSensing encompasses five data domains with significant covariate shifts, including two RGB satellite domians, one RGB aerial domian, one MS RGB domian, and one infrared domian. The various domains provide a more comprehensive testbed for evaluating the generalization performance of open-world models. We conduct the baseline evaluation of current mainstream open-world tasks and methods on OpenEarthSensing, demonstrating that it serves as a challenging benchmark for open-world remote sensing.

In this paper we describe a novel framework for diffusion-based generative modeling on constrained spaces. In particular, we introduce manual bridges, a framework that expands the kinds of constraints that can be practically used to form so-called diffusion bridges. We develop a mechanism for combining multiple such constraints so that the resulting multiply-constrained model remains a manual bridge that respects all constraints. We also develop a mechanism for training a diffusion model that respects such multiple constraints while also adapting it to match a data distribution. We develop and extend theory demonstrating the mathematical validity of our mechanisms. Additionally, we demonstrate our mechanism in constrained generative modeling tasks, highlighting a particular high-value application in modeling trajectory initializations for path planning and control in autonomous vehicles.