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Continuous-Time Homeostatic Dynamics for Reentrant Inference Models
We formulate the Fast-Weights Homeostatic Reentry Network (FHRN) as a continuous-time neural-ODE system, revealing its role as a norm-regulated reentrant dynamical process. Starting from the discrete reentry rule $x_t = x_t^{(\mathrm{ex})} + γ\, W_r\, g(\|y_{t-1}\|)\, y_{t-1}$, we derive the coupled system $\dot{y}=-y+f(W_ry;\,x,\,A)+g_{\mathrm{h}}(y)$ showing that the network couples fast associative memory with global radial homeostasis. The dynamics admit bounded attractors governed by an energy functional, yielding a ring-like manifold. A Jacobian spectral analysis identifies a \emph{reflective regime} in which reentry induces stable oscillatory trajectories rather than divergence or collapse. Unlike continuous-time recurrent neural networks or liquid neural networks, FHRN achieves stability through population-level gain modulation rather than fixed recurrence or neuron-local time adaptation. These results establish the reentry network as a distinct class of self-referential neural dynamics supporting recursive yet bounded computation.
Spatiotemporal Satellite Image Downscaling with Transfer Encoders and Autoregressive Generative Models
Xiang, Yang, Zhong, Jingwen, Yan, Yige, Koutrakis, Petros, Garshick, Eric, Franklin, Meredith
We present a transfer-learning generative downscaling framework to reconstruct fine resolution satellite images from coarse scale inputs. Our approach combines a lightweight U-Net transfer encoder with a diffusion-based generative model. The simpler U-Net is first pretrained on a long time series of coarse resolution data to learn spatiotemporal representations; its encoder is then frozen and transferred to a larger downscaling model as physically meaningful latent features. Our application uses NASA's MERRA-2 reanalysis as the low resolution source domain (50 km) and the GEOS-5 Nature Run (G5NR) as the high resolution target (7 km). Our study area included a large area in Asia, which was made computationally tractable by splitting into two subregions and four seasons. We conducted domain similarity analysis using Wasserstein distances confirmed minimal distributional shift between MERRA-2 and G5NR, validating the safety of parameter frozen transfer. Across seasonal regional splits, our model achieved excellent performance (R2 = 0.65 to 0.94), outperforming comparison models including deterministic U-Nets, variational autoencoders, and prior transfer learning baselines. Out of data evaluations using semivariograms, ACF/PACF, and lag-based RMSE/R2 demonstrated that the predicted downscaled images preserved physically consistent spatial variability and temporal autocorrelation, enabling stable autoregressive reconstruction beyond the G5NR record. These results show that transfer enhanced diffusion models provide a robust and physically coherent solution for downscaling a long time series of coarse resolution images with limited training periods. This advancement has significant implications for improving environmental exposure assessment and long term environmental monitoring.
SSDLabeler: Realistic semi-synthetic data generation for multi-label artifact classification in EEG
Akama, Taketo, Connelly, Akima, Minamikawa, Shun, Polouliakh, Natalia
EEG recordings are inherently contaminated by artifacts such as ocular, muscular, and environmental noise, which obscure neural activity and complicate preprocessing. Artifact classification offers advantages in stability and transparency, providing a viable alternative to ICA-based methods that enable flexible use alongside human inspections and across various applications. However, artifact classification is limited by its training data as it requires extensive manual labeling, which cannot fully cover the diversity of real-world EEG. Semi-synthetic data (SSD) methods have been proposed to address this limitation, but prior approaches typically injected single artifact types using ICA components or required separately recorded artifact signals, reducing both the realism of the generated data and the applicability of the method. To overcome these issues, we introduce SSDLabeler, a framework that generates realistic, annotated SSDs by decomposing real EEG with ICA, epoch-level artifact verification using RMS and PSD criteria, and reinjecting multiple artifact types into clean data. When applied to train a multi-label artifact classifier, it improved accuracy on raw EEG across diverse conditions compared to prior SSD and raw EEG training, establishing a scalable foundation for artifact handling that captures the co-occurrence and complexity of real EEG.
Enhancing Retrieval-Augmented Generation with Entity Linking for Educational Platforms
Granata, Francesco, Poggi, Francesco, Mongiovì, Misael
In the era of Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures are gaining significant attention for their ability to ground language generation in reliable knowledge sources. Despite their impressive effectiveness in many areas, RAG systems based solely on semantic similarity often fail to ensure factual accuracy in specialized domains, where terminological ambiguity can affect retrieval relevance. This study proposes an enhanced RAG architecture that integrates a factual signal derived from Entity Linking to improve the accuracy of educational question-answering systems in Italian. The system includes a Wikidata-based Entity Linking module and implements three re-ranking strategies to combine semantic and entity-based information: a hybrid score weighting model, reciprocal rank fusion, and a cross-encoder re-ranker. Experiments were conducted on two benchmarks: a custom academic dataset and the standard SQuAD-it dataset. Results show that, in domain-specific contexts, the hybrid schema based on reciprocal rank fusion significantly outperforms both the baseline and the cross-encoder approach, while the cross-encoder achieves the best results on the general-domain dataset. These findings confirm the presence of an effect of domain mismatch and highlight the importance of domain adaptation and hybrid ranking strategies to enhance factual precision and reliability in retrieval-augmented generation. They also demonstrate the potential of entity-aware RAG systems in educational environments, fostering adaptive and reliable AI-based tutoring tools.
MaxShapley: Towards Incentive-compatible Generative Search with Fair Context Attribution
Patel, Sara, Zhou, Mingxun, Fanti, Giulia
Generative search engines based on large language models (LLMs) are replacing traditional search, fundamentally changing how information providers are compensated. To sustain this ecosystem, we need fair mechanisms to attribute and compensate content providers based on their contributions to generated answers. We introduce MaxShapley, an efficient algorithm for fair attribution in generative search pipelines that use retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). MaxShapley is a special case of the celebrated Shapley value; it leverages a decomposable max-sum utility function to compute attributions with linear computation in the number of documents, as opposed to the exponential cost of Shapley values. We evaluate MaxShapley on three multi-hop QA datasets (HotPotQA, MuSiQUE, MS MARCO); MaxShapley achieves comparable attribution quality to exact Shapley computation, while consuming a fraction of its tokens--for instance, it gives up to an 8x reduction in resource consumption over prior state-of-the-art methods at the same attribution accuracy.
SymPyBench: A Dynamic Benchmark for Scientific Reasoning with Executable Python Code
Imani, Shima, Moon, Seungwhan, Ahmadyan, Adel, Zhang, Lu, Ahmed, Kirmani, Damavandi, Babak
We introduce, a large-scale synthetic benchmark of 15,045 university-level physics problems (90/10% train/test split). Each problem is fully parameterized, supporting an effectively infinite range of input configurations, and is accompanied by structured, step-by-step reasoning and executable Python code that produces the ground-truth solution for any parameter set. The benchmark contains three question types: MC-Symbolic (multiple-choice with symbolic options), MC-Numerical (multiple-choice with numerical options), and free-form (open-ended responses). These diverse formats test complementary reasoning skills. By leveraging the dynamic, code-driven nature of the benchmark, we introduce three novel evaluation metrics in addition to standard accuracy: Consistency Score, Failure Rate, and Confusion Rate, that quantify variability and uncertainty across problem variants. Experiments with state-of-the-art instruction-tuned language models reveal both strengths and limitations in scientific reasoning, positioning SymPyBench as a foundation for developing more robust and interpretable reasoning systems
Impugan: Learning Conditional Generative Models for Robust Data Imputation
Mahmud, Zalish, Kotal, Anantaa, Piplai, Aritran
Incomplete data are common in real-world applications. Sensors fail, records are inconsistent, and datasets collected from different sources often differ in scale, sampling rate, and quality. These differences create missing values that make it difficult to combine data and build reliable models. Standard imputation methods such as regression models, expectation-maximization, and multiple imputation rely on strong assumptions about linearity and independence. These assumptions rarely hold for complex or heterogeneous data, which can lead to biased or over-smoothed estimates. We propose Impugan, a conditional Generative Adversarial Network (cGAN) for imputing missing values and integrating heterogeneous datasets. The model is trained on complete samples to learn how missing variables depend on observed ones. During inference, the generator reconstructs missing entries from available features, and the discriminator enforces realism by distinguishing true from imputed data. This adversarial process allows Impugan to capture nonlinear and multimodal relationships that conventional methods cannot represent. In experiments on benchmark datasets and a multi-source integration task, Impugan achieves up to 82\% lower Earth Mover's Distance (EMD) and 70\% lower mutual-information deviation (MI) compared to leading baselines. These results show that adversarially trained generative models provide a scalable and principled approach for imputing and merging incomplete, heterogeneous data. Our model is available at: github.com/zalishmahmud/impuganBigData2025
Variational Quantum Rainbow Deep Q-Network for Optimizing Resource Allocation Problem
Nguyen, Truong Thanh Hung, Nguyen, Truong Thinh, Cao, Hung
Resource allocation remains NP-hard due to combinatorial complexity. While deep reinforcement learning (DRL) methods, such as the Rainbow Deep Q-Network (DQN), improve scalability through prioritized replay and distributional heads, classical function approximators limit their representational power. We introduce Variational Quantum Rainbow DQN (VQR-DQN), which integrates ring-topology variational quantum circuits with Rainbow DQN to leverage quantum superposition and entanglement. We frame the human resource allocation problem (HRAP) as a Markov decision process (MDP) with combinatorial action spaces based on officer capabilities, event schedules, and transition times. On four HRAP benchmarks, VQR-DQN achieves 26.8% normalized makespan reduction versus random baselines and outperforms Double DQN and classical Rainbow DQN by 4.9-13.4%. These gains align with theoretical connections between circuit expressibility, entanglement, and policy quality, demonstrating the potential of quantum-enhanced DRL for large-scale resource allocation. Our implementation is available at: https://github.com/Analytics-Everywhere-Lab/qtrl/.
Synset Signset Germany: a Synthetic Dataset for German Traffic Sign Recognition
Sielemann, Anne, Loercher, Lena, Schumacher, Max-Lion, Wolf, Stefan, Roschani, Masoud, Ziehn, Jens
In this paper, we present a synthesis pipeline and dataset for training / testing data in the task of traffic sign recognition that combines the advantages of data-driven and analytical modeling: GAN-based texture generation enables data-driven dirt and wear artifacts, rendering unique and realistic traffic sign surfaces, while the analytical scene modulation achieves physically correct lighting and allows detailed parameterization. In particular, the latter opens up applications in the context of explainable AI (XAI) and robustness tests due to the possibility of evaluating the sensitivity to parameter changes, which we demonstrate with experiments. Our resulting synthetic traffic sign recognition dataset Synset Signset Germany contains a total of 105500 images of 211 different German traffic sign classes, including newly published (2020) and thus comparatively rare traffic signs. In addition to a mask and a segmentation image, we also provide extensive metadata including the stochastically selected environment and imaging effect parameters for each image. We evaluate the degree of realism of Synset Signset Germany on the real-world German Traffic Sign Recognition Benchmark (GTSRB) and in comparison to CATERED, a state-of-the-art synthetic traffic sign recognition dataset.
Physically-Based Simulation of Automotive LiDAR
Dudzik, L., Roschani, M., Sielemann, A., Trampert, K., Ziehn, J., Beyerer, J., Neumann, C.
Abstract--We present an analytic model for simulating automotive time-of-flight (T oF) LiDAR that includes blooming, echo pulse width, and ambient light, along with steps to determine model parameters systematically through optical laboratory measurements. The model uses physically based rendering (PBR) in the near-infrared domain. It assumes single-bounce reflections and retroreflections over rasterized rendered images from shading or ray tracing, including light emitted from the sensor as well as stray light from other, non-correlated sources such as sunlight. Beams from the sensor and sensitivity of the receiving diodes are modeled with flexible beam steering patterns and with non-vanishing diameter . Different (all non-real time) computational approaches can be chosen based on system properties, computing capabilities, and desired output properties. Model parameters include system-specific properties, namely the physical spread of the LiDAR beam, combined with the sensitivity of the receiving diode; the intensity of the emitted light; the conversion between the intensity of reflected light and the echo pulse width; and scenario parameters such as environment lighting, positioning, and surface properties of the target(s) in the relevant infrared domain. System-specific properties of the model are determined from laboratory measurements of the photometric luminance on different target surfaces aligned with a goniometer at 0.01 resolution, which marks the best available resolution for measuring the beam pattern. The approach is calibrated for and tested on two automotive LiDAR systems, the V aleo Scala Gen. 2 and the Blickfeld Cube 1. Both systems differ notably in their properties and available interfaces, but the relevant model parameters could be extracted successfully.