Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) provides high-resolution, 3D, and non-invasive visualization of retinal layers in vivo, serving as a critical tool for lesion localization and disease diagnosis. However, its widespread adoption is limited by equipment costs and the need for specialized operators. In comparison, 2D color fundus photography offers faster acquisition and greater accessibility with less dependence on expensive devices. Although generative artificial intelligence has demonstrated promising results in medical image synthesis, translating 2D fundus images into 3D OCT images presents unique challenges due to inherent differences in data dimensionality and biological information between modalities. To advance generative models in the fundus-to-3D-OCT setting, the Asia Pacific Tele-Ophthalmology Society (APTOS-2024) organized a challenge titled Artificial Intelligence-based OCT Generation from Fundus Images. This paper details the challenge framework (referred to as APTOS-2024 Challenge), including: the benchmark dataset, evaluation methodology featuring two fidelity metrics-image-based distance (pixel-level OCT B-scan similarity) and video-based distance (semantic-level volumetric consistency), and analysis of top-performing solutions. The challenge attracted 342 participating teams, with 42 preliminary submissions and 9 finalists. Leading methodologies incorporated innovations in hybrid data preprocessing or augmentation (cross-modality collaborative paradigms), pre-training on external ophthalmic imaging datasets, integration of vision foundation models, and model architecture improvement. The APTOS-2024 Challenge is the first benchmark demonstrating the feasibility of fundus-to-3D-OCT synthesis as a potential solution for improving ophthalmic care accessibility in under-resourced healthcare settings, while helping to expedite medical research and clinical applications.

Segmentation of nuclei regions from histological images enables morphometric analysis of nuclei structures, which in turn helps in the detection and diagnosis of diseases under consideration. To develop a nuclei segmentation algorithm, applicable to different types of target domain representations, image-to-image translation networks can be considered as they are invariant to target domain image representations. One of the important issues with image-to-image translation models is that they fail miserably when the information content between two image domains are asymmetric in nature. In this regard, the paper introduces a new deep generative model for segmenting nuclei structures from histological images. The proposed model considers an embedding space for handling information-disparity between information-rich histological image space and information-poor segmentation map domain. Integrating judiciously the concepts of optimal transport and measure theory, the model develops an invertible generator, which provides an efficient optimization framework with lower network complexity. The concept of invertible generator automatically eliminates the need of any explicit cycle-consistency loss. The proposed model also introduces a spatially-constrained squeeze operation within the framework of invertible generator to maintain spatial continuity within the image patches. The model provides a better trade-off between network complexity and model performance compared to other existing models having complex network architectures. The performance of the proposed deep generative model, along with a comparison with state-of-the-art nuclei segmentation methods, is demonstrated on publicly available histological image data sets.

Artificial intelligence is poised to transform teaching and coaching practices,yet its optimal role alongside human expertise remains unclear.This study investigates human and AI collaboration in fitness education through a one year qualitative case study with a Pilates instructor.The researcher participated in the instructor classes and conducted biweekly semi structured interviews to explore how generative AI could be integrated into class planning and instruction.

We present STARFlow, a scalable generative model based on normalizing flows that achieves strong performance in high-resolution image synthesis. The core of STARFlow is Transformer Autoregressive Flow (TARFlow), which combines the expressive power of normalizing flows with the structured modeling capabilities of Autoregressive Transformers. We first establish the theoretical universality of TARFlow for modeling continuous distributions. Building on this foundation, we introduce several key architectural and algorithmic innovations to significantly enhance scalability: (1) a deep-shallow design, wherein a deep Transformer block captures most of the model representational capacity, complemented by a few shallow Transformer blocks that are computationally efficient yet substantially beneficial; (2) modeling in the latent space of pretrained autoencoders, which proves more effective than direct pixel-level modeling; and (3) a novel guidance algorithm that significantly boosts sample quality. Crucially, our model remains an end-to-end normalizing flow, enabling exact maximum likelihood training in continuous spaces without discretization. STARFlow achieves competitive performance in both class-conditional and text-conditional image generation tasks, approaching state-of-the-art diffusion models in sample quality. To our knowledge, this work is the first successful demonstration of normalizing flows operating effectively at this scale and resolution.

As generative AI (GenAI) becomes increasingly widespread, it is crucial to equip users, particularly vulnerable populations such as older adults (65 and older), with the knowledge to understand its benefits and potential risks. Older adults often exhibit greater reservations about adopting emerging technologies and require tailored literacy support. Using a mixed methods approach, this study examines strategies for delivering GenAI literacy to older adults through a chatbot named Litti, evaluating its impact on their AI literacy (knowledge, safety, and ethical use). The quantitative data indicated a trend toward improved AI literacy, though the results were not statistically significant. However, qualitative interviews revealed diverse levels of familiarity with generative AI and a strong desire to learn more. Findings also show that while Litti provided a positive learning experience, it did not significantly enhance participants' trust or sense of safety regarding GenAI. This exploratory case study highlights the challenges and opportunities in designing AI literacy education for the rapidly growing older adult population.

Three months after the Chinese artificial intelligence developer DeepSeek upended the tech world with a model that rivaled America's best, a 28-year-old AI executive named Alexandr Wang came to Capitol Hill to tell policymakers what they needed to do to maintain U.S. dominance. The U.S. needs to establish a "national AI data reserve," supply enough power for data centers and avoid an onerous patchwork of state-level rules, Wang said at the April hearing. "It's good to see you again here in Washington," Republican Representative Neal Dunn of Florida said. Wang, the chief executive officer of Scale AI, may not be a household name in the same way OpenAI's Sam Altman has become. But he and his company have gained significant influence in tech and policy circles in recent years.

Collective risk social dilemmas (CRSD) highlight a trade-off between individual preferences and the need for all to contribute toward achieving a group objective. Problems such as climate change are in this category, and so it is critical to understand their social underpinnings. However, rigorous CRSD methodology often demands large-scale human experiments but it is difficult to guarantee sufficient power and heterogeneity over socio-demographic factors. Generative AI offers a potential complementary approach to address thisproblem. By replacing human participants with large language models (LLM), it allows for a scalable empirical framework. This paper focuses on the validity of this approach and whether it is feasible to represent a large-scale human-like experiment with sufficient diversity using LLM. In particular, where previous literature has focused on political surveys, virtual towns and classical game-theoretic examples, we focus on a complex CRSD used in the institutional economics and sustainability literature known as Port of Mars

Uncertainty quantification (UQ) is essential for safe deployment of generative AI models such as large language models (LLMs), especially in high stakes applications. Conformal prediction (CP) offers a principled uncertainty quantification framework, but classical methods focus on regression and classification, relying on geometric distances or softmax scores: tools that presuppose structured outputs. We depart from this paradigm by studying CP in a query only setting, where prediction sets must be constructed solely from finite queries to a black box generative model, introducing a new trade off between coverage, test time query budget, and informativeness. We introduce Conformal Prediction with Query Oracle (CPQ), a framework characterizing the optimal interplay between these objectives. Our finite sample algorithm is built on two core principles: one governs the optimal query policy, and the other defines the optimal mapping from queried samples to prediction sets. Remarkably, both are rooted in the classical missing mass problem in statistics. Specifically, the optimal query policy depends on the rate of decay, or the derivative, of the missing mass, for which we develop a novel estimator. Meanwhile, the optimal mapping hinges on the missing mass itself, which we estimate using Good Turing estimators. We then turn our focus to implementing our method for language models, where outputs are vast, variable, and often under specified. Fine grained experiments on three real world open ended tasks and two LLMs, show CPQ applicability to any black box LLM and highlight: (1) individual contribution of each principle to CPQ performance, and (2) CPQ ability to yield significantly more informative prediction sets than existing conformal methods for language uncertainty quantification.

The generation of high-quality 3D environments is crucial for industries such as gaming, virtual reality, and cinema, yet remains resource-intensive due to the reliance on manual processes. This study performs a systematic review of existing generative AI techniques for 3D scene generation, analyzing their characteristics, strengths, limitations, and potential for improvement. By examining state-of-the-art approaches, it presents key challenges such as scene authenticity and the influence of textual inputs. Special attention is given to how AI can blend different stylistic domains while maintaining coherence, the impact of training data on output quality, and the limitations of current models. In addition, this review surveys existing evaluation metrics for assessing realism and explores how industry professionals incorporate AI into their workflows. The findings of this study aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current landscape and serve as a foundation for future research on AI-driven 3D content generation. Key findings include that advanced generative architectures enable high-quality 3D content creation at a high computational cost, effective multi-modal integration techniques like cross-attention and latent space alignment facilitate text-to-3D tasks, and the quality and diversity of training data combined with comprehensive evaluation metrics are critical to achieving scalable, robust 3D scene generation.

A critical challenge remains unresolved as generative AI systems are quickly implemented in various organizational settings. Despite significant advances in memory components such as RAG, vector stores, and LLM agents, these systems still have substantial memory limitations. Gen AI workflows rarely store or reflect on the full context in which decisions are made. This leads to repeated errors and a general lack of clarity. This paper introduces Contextual Memory Intelligence (CMI) as a new foundational paradigm for building intelligent systems. It repositions memory as an adaptive infrastructure necessary for longitudinal coherence, explainability, and responsible decision-making rather than passive data. Drawing on cognitive science, organizational theory, human-computer interaction, and AI governance, CMI formalizes the structured capture, inference, and regeneration of context as a fundamental system capability. The Insight Layer is presented in this paper to operationalize this vision. This modular architecture uses human-in-the-loop reflection, drift detection, and rationale preservation to incorporate contextual memory into systems. The paper argues that CMI allows systems to reason with data, history, judgment, and changing context, thereby addressing a foundational blind spot in current AI architectures and governance efforts. A framework for creating intelligent systems that are effective, reflective, auditable, and socially responsible is presented through CMI. This enhances human-AI collaboration, generative AI design, and the resilience of the institutions.