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Generalized Discrete Diffusion from Snapshots

arXiv.org Machine Learning

We introduce Generalized Discrete Diffusion from Snapshots (GDDS), a unified framework for discrete diffusion modeling that supports arbitrary noising processes over large discrete state spaces. Our formulation encompasses all existing discrete diffusion approaches, while allowing significantly greater flexibility in the choice of corruption dynamics. The forward noising process relies on uniformization and enables fast arbitrary corruption. For the reverse process, we derive a simple evidence lower bound (ELBO) based on snapshot latents, instead of the entire noising path, that allows efficient training of standard generative modeling architectures with clear probabilistic interpretation. Our experiments on large-vocabulary discrete generation tasks suggest that the proposed framework outperforms existing discrete diffusion methods in terms of training efficiency and generation quality, and beats autoregressive models for the first time at this scale. We provide the code along with a blog post on the project page : \href{https://oussamazekri.fr/gdds}{https://oussamazekri.fr/gdds}.


Rule-State Inference (RSI): A Bayesian Framework for Compliance Monitoring in Rule-Governed Domains

arXiv.org Machine Learning

Existing machine learning frameworks for compliance monitoring -- Markov Logic Networks, Probabilistic Soft Logic, supervised models -- share a fundamental paradigm: they treat observed data as ground truth and attempt to approximate rules from it. This assumption breaks down in rule-governed domains such as taxation or regulatory compliance, where authoritative rules are known a priori and the true challenge is to infer the latent state of rule activation, compliance, and parametric drift from partial and noisy observations. We propose Rule-State Inference (RSI), a Bayesian framework that inverts this paradigm by encoding regulatory rules as structured priors and casting compliance monitoring as posterior inference over a latent rule-state space S = {(a_i, c_i, delta_i)}, where a_i captures rule activation, c_i models the compliance rate, and delta_i quantifies parametric drift. We prove three theoretical guarantees: (T1) RSI absorbs regulatory changes in O(1) time via a prior ratio correction, independently of dataset size; (T2) the posterior is Bernstein-von Mises consistent, converging to the true rule state as observations accumulate; (T3) mean-field variational inference monotonically maximizes the Evidence Lower BOund (ELBO). We instantiate RSI on the Togolese fiscal system and introduce RSI-Togo-Fiscal-Synthetic v1.0, a benchmark of 2,000 synthetic enterprises grounded in real OTR regulatory rules (2022-2025). Without any labeled training data, RSI achieves F1=0.519 and AUC=0.599, while absorbing regulatory changes in under 1ms versus 683-1082ms for full model retraining -- at least a 600x speedup.


Data centers under scrutiny by California lawmakers as fears rise about health and energy impacts

Los Angeles Times

Due to health and energy concerns, the California Legislature is considering bills to prohibit data centers from being exempted from the state's stringent environmental law and impose new tariffs on new major energy users that strain power supplies.


Hassan Took a Bike Ride. Now He's One of the Thousands Missing in Gaza

WIRED

In a place denied access to basic forensic technology--and where people disappear into Israeli detention--the fate of thousands remains unknown. One of them is an autistic teenager. In the early morning dark, Abeer Skaik turned to her husband, Ali Al-Qatta, and said that today would be the day they would find their son. Ali nodded in silence, and she handed him the stack of flyers. Each bore a photograph of 16-year-old Hassan smiling widely, his shoulders loose, wearing a plain red T-shirt. He is looking directly at the camera, unguarded. On top of the page, in large letters, Abeer had written a single word in bold red ink: --an appeal. Abeer watched as Ali stepped into a car with a few close friends and drove away. They started the 30-kilometer trip south, from al-Tuffah, east of Gaza City, to the European Hospital in Khan Younis. They had heard that a group of people detained by Israel, including children, would be released there. The gate was already crowded. Families stood shoulder to shoulder, wrapped in blankets against the cold, clutching photographs and ID cards. Ali distributed the flyers among his friends. When the buses of released detainees arrived, he and the others moved slowly through the narrow gaps between clusters of people. Some of those who had just been released were being pulled into embraces. Ali waited at the edge of each reunion. "Have you seen my son?" he asked. One after another, people shook their heads.



IMPACT: A Large-scale Integrated Multimodal Patent Analysis and Creation Dataset for Design Patents

Neural Information Processing Systems

In this paper, we introduce IMPACT (Integrated Multimodal Patent Analysis and Creation Dataset for Design Patents), a large-scale multimodal patent dataset with detailed captions for design patent figures. Our dataset includes half a million design patents comprising 3.61 million figures along with captions from patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) over a 16-year period from 2007 to 2022. We incorporate the metadata of each patent application with elaborate captions that are coherent with multiple viewpoints of designs. Even though patents themselves contain a variety of design figures, titles, and descriptions of viewpoints, we find that they lack detailed descriptions that are necessary to perform multimodal tasks such as classification and retrieval. IMPACT closes this gap thereby providing researchers with necessary ingredients to instantiate a variety of multimodal tasks. Our dataset has a huge potential for novel design inspiration and can be used with advanced computer vision models in tandem. We perform preliminary evaluations on the dataset on the popular patent analysis tasks such as classification and retrieval. Our results indicate that integrating images with generated captions significantly improves the performance of different models on the corresponding tasks. Given that design patents offer various benefits for modeling novel tasks, we propose two standard computer vision tasks that have not been investigated in analyzing patents as future directions using IMPACT as a benchmark viz., 3D Image Construction and Visual Question Answering (VQA).


You're eating your hot cross buns WRONG! Experts reveal why you should cut yours into thirds to increase the surface area for butter

Daily Mail - Science & tech

Spring Break travelers facing TSA hell fume as it's revealed why only certain airports crippled by shutdown Chappell Roan apologises to Jude Law's daughter as she insists she did not ask security guard to approach her and says'I do not hate fans of my music or children' Democratic enclave tears down tent city in its latest'whack-a-mole' move as homeless crisis laid bare Infertile influencer Clavicular's dark fetish is far more alarming than anyone feared, claim high school enemies as they leak unrecognizable photos and humiliating secrets I was a producer on The Bachelor. I've seen what happens when the cameras stop rolling: JANA HOCKING reveals the humiliating crisis talks, sex secrets and forbidden relationships Under fire again: Embattled sheriff in Nancy Guthrie case was accused of'assaulting deputy'...as decades of complaints emerge My daughters begged me not to send them back to their mother... Inside Enya's off-grid life in a £2.5M remote castle with 12 cats and no partner or children after turning her back on fame and admitting she's'dark and difficult' to be around'He just didn't protect him': Insiders reveal REAL reason Justin Bieber and Usher's secret feud hit'boiling point' at Oscars MORE bad news for Austin's housing market as Texan city leads in plummeting prices Hawaii's worst flooding in 20 years caused over $1BILLION in damage as crews desperately search for woman swept away in deluge Princess Beatrice puts on united front with husband Edo during lunch out amid fears her'marriage is in trouble' in wake of Epstein scandal Friends reveal fears Princess Beatrice's'marriage is in trouble' in wake of Epstein scandal. I was the only one JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette trusted when they burdened me with an extraordinarily intimate secret. Iran war live: Trump threatens to'obliterate' Tehran's power plants if Strait of Hormuz does not'fully open' in next 48 hours Trump's White House ballroom architect'has totally baffled colleagues' by taking on controversial project Oscars PANIC as ratings hemorrhage: Insiders reveal'existential crisis' inside the Academy... and why Hollywood's biggest night was a'big fat dud' My husband's filthy habit is so revolting I don't even want to kiss him: DEAR JANE READ MORE: Britain's best supermarket hot cross buns revealed There's nothing quite like a toasted hot cross bun slathered in butter. Now, experts have suggested an unusual way to make them taste even better - by slicing them into thirds.


Palantir extends reach into British state as it gets access to sensitive FCA data

The Guardian

Palantir, co-founded by the billionaire Donald Trump donor Peter Thiel (pictured), has been appointed for a three-month trial period. Palantir, co-founded by the billionaire Donald Trump donor Peter Thiel (pictured), has been appointed for a three-month trial period. Sun 22 Mar 2026 12.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 22 Mar 2026 22.30 EDT Palantir is to be granted access to a trove of highly sensitive UK financial regulation data, in a deal that has prompted fresh concerns about the US AI companyâ s deepening reach into the British state, the Guardian can reveal. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has awarded Palantir a contract to investigate the watchdogâ s internal intelligence data in an effort to help it tackle financial crime, which includes investigating fraud, money laundering and insider trading. The Miami-based company, co-founded by the billionaire Donald Trump donor Peter Thiel, has been appointed for a three-month trial, paying more than £30,000 a week to analyse the FCAâ s vast â data lakeâ, which could lead to a full procurement of an AI system.


How Bad Is Plagiarism, Really?

The New Yorker

How Bad Is Plagiarism, Really? From ancient Rome to the era of A.I., people have prized originality, but the line where influence ends and cribbing begins is notoriously blurry. One pleasing facet of plagiarism is that, in the eyes of the law, it doesn't exist. I could come over later, bring a few beers, and we could, you know, get down to some serious humanizing. Hard to resist, these days, given what's at stake. For students with assignments to complete, who have already vanquished their desolation by asking ChatGPT to compose an essay on their behalf, a humanizer is an A.I. tool that takes what has been produced, puts it through a further digital mill, and makes it sound as if it had emerged from a verifiable person. Among the companies that offer such tools are StealthWriter, HIX AI, and QuillBot. Anyone who has buttered and blitzed a mountain of mashed potatoes into a purée will understand.


You're doing your laundry wrong! Experts reveal why you should NEVER close the washing machine door after a wash

Daily Mail - Science & tech

Furious Trump issues threat to Iran demanding Strait of Hormuz is'FULLY OPENED' in hours or America will'obliterate their power plants'... and there's already a key target in sight Nancy Guthrie's desperate family releases emotional new statement as they plead for'renewed attention to our mom's case' 50 days after she vanished Chappell Roan accused of'leaving Jude Law's 11-year-old daughter in tears and using security guard to threaten her' I was the only one JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette trusted when they burdened me with an extraordinarily intimate secret. How Iran's ruthless enforcers use rape to crush dissent: Brutal sex attacks on victims as young as 12 used to strike fear into protesters, rights groups reveal amid fury over sickening nurse gang rape Shia LaBeouf suffers public meltdown in Rome as he's caught screaming'f*** off' at woman... after battery arrests'He just didn't protect him': Insiders reveal REAL reason Justin Bieber and Usher's secret feud hit'boiling point' at Oscars I thought I was losing my mind... then doctors told me I had'exploding head syndrome'. America is about to be torn apart by a financial tsunami - and it's not just an oil crisis to fear. Denise Richards's plastic surgeon reveals stunning before-and-after photos of her facelift'Get the f*** out of my life,' JFK Jr screamed at Carolyn Bessette... what she cruelly told friends about his manhood... the cuckolding, cocaine - and moment that sent her truly psychotic: MAUREEN CALLAHAN has the untold REAL story'Meteorite' CRASHES into woman's home as residents are left terrified by massive sonic boom YouTuber who exposed Somali'fraudsters' in bombshell investigation reveals terrifying threats from left-wing activists... as he begs for cash to help pay for security Sabine Getty's gown gets STUCK in escalator at Oscars during dramatic moment Charlie's Angels bombshell Jaclyn Smith looks nowhere near her 80 years in Beverly Hills... see her now Florida's Olivier Rioux, tallest player in college basketball history, dwarfs 6ft8 March Madness rival as defending champs roll to win RFK Jr reveals his strange daily routine... including not eating until noon and meditating with'dead people' Iran ballistic missile hits Israeli city in terrifying strike near top-secret facility that is key to country's atomic weapons program Ted Cruz proposes dramatic change to ICE funding in repsonse to'extreme and unreasonable' Democrats in effort to end bitter standoff causing airport chaos And now it turns out you've probably been doing your laundry wrong this entire time. Experts at AO.com have revealed why you should never close the washing machine door after a wash.