Learning Graphical Models
From Static to Adaptive Defense: Federated Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning-Driven Moving Target Defense Against DoS Attacks in UAV Swarm Networks
Zhou, Yuyang, Cheng, Guang, Du, Kang, Chen, Zihan, Qin, Tian, Zhao, Yuyu
Abstract--The proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UA Vs) has enabled a wide range of mission-critical applications and is becoming a cornerstone of low-altitude networks, supporting smart cities, emergency response, and more. However, the open wireless environment, dynamic topology, and resource constraints of UA Vs expose low-altitude networks to severe Denial-of-Service (DoS) threats, undermining their reliability and security. Traditional defense approaches, which rely on fixed configurations or centralized decision-making, cannot effectively respond to the rapidly changing conditions in UA V swarm environments. T o address these challenges, we propose a novel federated multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (FMADRL)- driven moving target defense (MTD) framework for proactive DoS mitigation in low-altitude networks. Specifically, we design lightweight and coordinated MTD mechanisms, including leader switching, route mutation, and frequency hopping, to disrupt attacker efforts and enhance network resilience. The defense problem is formulated as a multi-agent partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP), capturing the uncertain nature of UA V swarms under attack. Each UA V is equipped with a policy agent that autonomously selects MTD actions based on partial observations and local experiences. By employing a policy gradient-based FMADRL algorithm, UA Vs collaboratively optimize their policies via reward-weighted aggregation, enabling distributed learning without sharing raw data and thus reducing communication overhead. Extensive simulations demonstrate that our approach significantly outperforms state-of-the-art baselines, achieving up to a 34.6% improvement in attack mitigation rate, a reduction in average recovery time of up to 94.6%, and decreases in energy consumption and defense cost by as much as 29.3% and 98.3%, respectively, under various DoS attack strategies. These results highlight the potential of intelligent, distributed defense mechanisms to protect low-altitude networks, paving the way for reliable and scalable low-altitude economy. HE rapid development of unmanned aerial vehicle (UA V) technology [1] has enabled a wide range of applications, including environmental monitoring, disaster response, precision agriculture, logistics, aerial photography, and intelligent surveillance [2]. Y uyang Zhou, Guang Cheng, Kang Du, Zihan Chen, Tian Qin, and Y uyu Zhao are with the School of Cyber Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Purple Mountain Laboratories, and Jiangsu Province Engineering Research Center of Security for Ubiquitous Network, Nanjing 211189, China. Guang Cheng is the corresponding author. It is expected to play an increasingly important role in smart cities, emergency management, and next-generation communication infrastructures, forming the backbone of low-altitude networks. Nevertheless, the widespread adoption of UA V swarms also brings new security challenges [7], [8] to low-altitude networks.
A survey of using EHR as real-world evidence for discovering and validating new drug indications
Talukdar, Nabasmita, Zhang, Xiaodan, Paithankar, Shreya, Wang, Hui, Chen, Bin
Electronic Health Records (EHRs) have been increasingly used as real-world evidence (RWE) to support the discovery and validation of new drug indications. This paper surveys current approaches to EHR-based drug repurposing, covering data sources, processing methodologies, and representation techniques. It discusses study designs and statistical frameworks for evaluating drug efficacy. Key challenges in validation are discussed, with emphasis on the role of large language models (LLMs) and target trial emulation. By synthesizing recent developments and methodological advances, this work provides a foundational resource for researchers aiming to translate real-world data into actionable drug-repurposing evidence.
PoE-World: Compositional World Modeling with Products of Programmatic Experts
Piriyakulkij, Wasu Top, Liang, Yichao, Tang, Hao, Weller, Adrian, Kryven, Marta, Ellis, Kevin
Learning how the world works is central to building AI agents that can adapt to complex environments. Traditional world models based on deep learning demand vast amounts of training data, and do not flexibly update their knowledge from sparse observations. Recent advances in program synthesis using Large Language Models (LLMs) give an alternate approach which learns world models represented as source code, supporting strong generalization from little data. To date, application of program-structured world models remains limited to natural language and grid-world domains. We introduce a novel program synthesis method for effectively modeling complex, non-gridworld domains by representing a world model as an exponentially-weighted product of programmatic experts (PoE-World) synthesized by LLMs. We show that this approach can learn complex, stochastic world models from just a few observations. We evaluate the learned world models by embedding them in a model-based planning agent, demonstrating efficient performance and generalization to unseen levels on Atari's Pong and Montezuma's Revenge. We release our code and display the learned world models and videos of the agent's gameplay at https://topwasu.github.io/poe-world.
Bayesian Semiparametric Causal Inference: Targeted Doubly Robust Estimation of Treatment Effects
Sert, Gözde, Chakrabortty, Abhishek, Bhattacharya, Anirban
We propose a semiparametric Bayesian methodology for estimating the average treatment effect (ATE) within the potential outcomes framework using observational data with high-dimensional nuisance parameters. Our method introduces a Bayesian debiasing procedure that corrects for bias arising from nuisance estimation and employs a targeted modeling strategy based on summary statistics rather than the full data. These summary statistics are identified in a debiased manner, enabling the estimation of nuisance bias via weighted observables and facilitating hierarchical learning of the ATE. By combining debiasing with sample splitting, our approach separates nuisance estimation from inference on the target parameter, reducing sensitivity to nuisance model specification. We establish that, under mild conditions, the marginal posterior for the ATE satisfies a Bernstein-von Mises theorem when both nuisance models are correctly specified and remains consistent and robust when only one is correct, achieving Bayesian double robustness. This ensures asymptotic efficiency and frequentist validity. Extensive simulations confirm the theoretical results, demonstrating accurate point estimation and credible intervals with nominal coverage, even in high-dimensional settings. The proposed framework can also be extended to other causal estimands, and its key principles offer a general foundation for advancing Bayesian semiparametric inference more broadly.
Beyond Tsybakov: Model Margin Noise and $\mathcal{H}$-Consistency Bounds
We introduce a new low-noise condition for classification, the Model Margin Noise (MM noise) assumption, and derive enhanced $\mathcal{H}$-consistency bounds under this condition. MM noise is weaker than Tsybakov noise condition: it is implied by Tsybakov noise condition but can hold even when Tsybakov fails, because it depends on the discrepancy between a given hypothesis and the Bayes-classifier rather than on the intrinsic distributional minimal margin (see Figure 1 for an illustration of an explicit example). This hypothesis-dependent assumption yields enhanced $\mathcal{H}$-consistency bounds for both binary and multi-class classification. Our results extend the enhanced $\mathcal{H}$-consistency bounds of Mao, Mohri, and Zhong (2025a) with the same favorable exponents but under a weaker assumption than the Tsybakov noise condition; they interpolate smoothly between linear and square-root regimes for intermediate noise levels. We also instantiate these bounds for common surrogate loss families and provide illustrative tables.
Inverse Filtering for Hidden Markov Models
This paper considers a number of related inverse filtering problems for hidden Markov models (HMMs). In particular, given a sequence of state posteriors and the system dynamics; i) estimate the corresponding sequence of observations, ii) estimate the observation likelihoods, and iii) jointly estimate the observation likelihoods and the observation sequence. We show how to avoid a computationally expensive mixed integer linear program (MILP) by exploiting the algebraic structure of the HMM filter using simple linear algebra operations, and provide conditions for when the quantities can be uniquely reconstructed. We also propose a solution to the more general case where the posteriors are noisily observed. Finally, the proposed inverse filtering algorithms are evaluated on real-world polysomnographic data used for automatic sleep segmentation.