Multi-task learning (MTL) has shown effectiveness in exploiting shared information across tasks to improve generalization. MTL assumes tasks share similarities that can improve performance. In addition, boosting algorithms have demonstrated exceptional performance across diverse learning problems, primarily due to their ability to focus on hard-to-learn instances and iteratively reduce residual errors. This makes them a promising approach for learning multi-task problems. However, real-world MTL scenarios often involve tasks that are not well-aligned (known as outlier or adversarial tasks), which do not share beneficial similarities with others and can, in fact, deteriorate the performance of the overall model. To overcome this challenge, we propose Robust-Multi-Task Gradient Boosting (R-MTGB), a novel boosting framework that explicitly models and adapts to task heterogeneity during training. R-MTGB structures the learning process into three sequential blocks: (1) learning shared patterns, (2) partitioning tasks into outliers and non-outliers with regularized parameters, and (3) fine-tuning task-specific predictors. This architecture enables R-MTGB to automatically detect and penalize outlier tasks while promoting effective knowledge transfer among related tasks. Our method integrates these mechanisms seamlessly within gradient boosting, allowing robust handling of noisy or adversarial tasks without sacrificing accuracy. Extensive experiments on both synthetic benchmarks and real-world datasets demonstrate that our approach successfully isolates outliers, transfers knowledge, and consistently reduces prediction errors for each task individually, and achieves overall performance gains across all tasks. These results highlight robustness, adaptability, and reliable convergence of R-MTGB in challenging MTL environments.

Transformer models rely heavily on the scaled dot-product attention (SDPA) operation, typically implemented as FlashAttention. Characterized by its frequent interleaving of matrix multiplications and softmax operations, FlashAttention fails to fully utilize the compute resources of modern systolic-array-based accelerators designed for consecutive and large matrix multiplications. To fully unleash the performance potential of systolic arrays for FlashAttention, we propose FSA, an enhanced systolic array architecture that runs the entire FlashAttention on the array without external vector units. Combined with SystolicAttention, an optimized kernel for FSA that achieves fine-grained and element-wise overlapping of FlashAttention operations, FSA maximizes array utilization while preserving the original floating-point operation order of FlashAttention. We implement FSA in synthesizable RTL and evaluate its performance against state-of-the-art systolic-array-based accelerators. Our results show that FSA achieves 1.77x and 4.83x higher attention FLOPs/s utilization compared to AWS Neuron-v2 and Google TPUv5e, respectively. We synthesize FSA in a 16 nm technology at 1.5 GHz, and results indicate only a 12% area overhead compared to a standard weight-stationary systolic array.

Watermarking is a promising defense against the misuse of large language models (LLMs), yet it remains vulnerable to scrubbing and spoofing attacks. This vulnerability stems from an inherent trade-off governed by watermark window size: smaller windows resist scrubbing better but are easier to reverse-engineer, enabling low-cost statistics-based spoofing attacks. This work breaks this trade-off by introducing a novel mechanism, equivalent texture keys, where multiple tokens within a watermark window can independently support the detection. Based on the redundancy, we propose a novel watermark scheme with Sub-vocabulary decomposed Equivalent tExture Key (SEEK). It achieves a Pareto improvement, increasing the resilience against scrubbing attacks without compromising robustness to spoofing. Experiments demonstrate SEEK's superiority over prior method, yielding spoofing robustness gains of +88.2%/+92.3%/+82.0% and scrubbing robustness gains of +10.2%/+6.4%/+24.6% across diverse dataset settings.

Building on our previous work introducing Fredholm Neural Networks (Fredholm NNs/ FNNs) for solving integral equations, we extend the framework to tackle forward and inverse problems for linear and semi-linear elliptic partial differential equations. The proposed scheme consists of a deep neural network (DNN) which is designed to represent the iterative process of fixed-point iterations for the solution of elliptic PDEs using the boundary integral method within the framework of potential theory. The number of layers, weights, biases and hyperparameters are computed in an explainable manner based on the iterative scheme, and we therefore refer to this as the Potential Fredholm Neural Network (PFNN). We show that this approach ensures both accuracy and explainability, achieving small errors in the interior of the domain, and near machine-precision on the boundary. We provide a constructive proof for the consistency of the scheme and provide explicit error bounds for both the interior and boundary of the domain, reflected in the layers of the PFNN. These error bounds depend on the approximation of the boundary function and the integral discretization scheme, both of which directly correspond to components of the Fredholm NN architecture. In this way, we provide an explainable scheme that explicitly respects the boundary conditions. We assess the performance of the proposed scheme for the solution of both the forward and inverse problem for linear and semi-linear elliptic PDEs in two dimensions.

LLM-integrated applications and agents are vulnerable to prompt injection attacks, where adversaries embed malicious instructions within seemingly benign input data to manipulate the LLM's intended behavior. Recent defenses based on known-answer detection (KAD) scheme have reported near-perfect performance by observing an LLM's output to classify input data as clean or contaminated. KAD attempts to repurpose the very susceptibility to prompt injection as a defensive mechanism. We formally characterize the KAD scheme and uncover a structural vulnerability that invalidates its core security premise. To exploit this fundamental vulnerability, we methodically design an adaptive attack, DataFlip. It consistently evades KAD defenses, achieving detection rates as low as $0\%$ while reliably inducing malicious behavior with a success rate of $91\%$, all without requiring white-box access to the LLM or any optimization procedures.

-- Current medical language models, adapted from large language models (LLMs), typically predict ICD code - based diagnosis from electronic health records (EHRs) because these labels are readily available. However, ICD codes do not capture the nuanced, context - rich reasoning clinicians use for diagnosis. Clinicians synthesize diverse patient data and reference clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) to make evidence - based decisions. This misalignment limits the clinical utility of existing models. We introduce GARMLE - G, a Generation - Augmented Retrieval framework that grounds medical language model outp uts in authoritative CPGs. Unlike conventional Retrieval - Augmented Generation based approaches, GARMLE - G enables hallucination - free outputs by directly retrieving authoritative guideline content without relying on model - generated text. It (1) integrates LLM predictions with EHR data to create semantically rich queries, (2) retrieves relevant CPG knowledge snippets via embedding similarity, and (3) fuses guideline content with model output to generate clinically aligned recommendations. A prototype system for hypertension diagnosis was developed and evaluated on multiple metrics, demonstrating superior retrieval precision, semantic relevance, and clinical guideline adherence compared to RAG - based baselines, while maintaining a lightweight architecture suitable for localized healthcare deployment. This work provides a scalable, low - cost, and hallucination - free method for grounding medical language models in evidence - based clinical practice, with strong potential for broader clinical deployment. The research reported in this paper is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (62276156), the project of Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (ZR2024LZH005), the Taishan Scholar Program of Shandong Province of China (No.tsq nz20240809), and the Excellent Youth Foundation of Shandong Natural Science Foundation (2024HWYQ - 055). Wenhao Li is with Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China, 250358 (email: lwh@sdnu.edu.cn) Hongkuan Zhang is with Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China, 250358 (email: 2024217028@stu.sdnu.edu.cn) In the healthcare sector, language models and related tools, such as ChatGPT and ClinicalBERT, have been increasingly applied across multiple scenarios, including disease prediction, clinical decision support, patient interaction, drug discovery, and personalized medicine, significantly driving innovation and transformation in medical technology [1, 2] . As a fundamental task in healthcare, disease diagnosis refers to the process by which health professionals identify the most likely disease or disorder causing a patient's symptoms [3] .

In this work, we introduce a novel Quadratic Binary Optimization (QBO) framework for training a quantized neural network. The framework enables the use of arbitrary activation and loss functions through spline interpolation, while Forward Interval Propagation addresses the nonlinearities and the multi-layered, composite structure of neural networks via discretizing activation functions into linear subintervals. This preserves the universal approximation properties of neural networks while allowing complex nonlinear functions accessible to quantum solvers, broadening their applicability in artificial intelligence. Theoretically, we derive an upper bound on the approximation error and the number of Ising spins required by deriving the sample complexity of the empirical risk minimization problem from an optimization perspective. A key challenge in solving the associated large-scale Quadratic Constrained Binary Optimization (QCBO) model is the presence of numerous constraints. To overcome this, we adopt the Quantum Conditional Gradient Descent (QCGD) algorithm, which solves QCBO directly on quantum hardware. We establish the convergence of QCGD under a quantum oracle subject to randomness, bounded variance, and limited coefficient precision, and further provide an upper bound on the Time-To-Solution. To enhance scalability, we further incorporate a decomposed copositive optimization scheme that replaces the monolithic lifted model with sample-wise subproblems. This decomposition substantially reduces the quantum resource requirements and enables efficient low-bit neural network training. We further propose the usage of QCGD and Quantum Progressive Hedging (QPH) algorithm to efficiently solve the decomposed problem.

The growth of Large Language Model (LLM) technology has raised expectations for automated coding. However, software engineering is more than coding and is concerned with activities including maintenance and evolution of a project. In this context, the concept of LLM agents has gained traction, which utilize LLMs as reasoning engines to invoke external tools autonomously. But is an LLM agent the same as an AI software engineer? In this paper, we seek to understand this question by developing a Unified Software Engineering agent or USEagent. Unlike existing work which builds specialized agents for specific software tasks such as testing, debugging, and repair, our goal is to build a unified agent which can orchestrate and handle multiple capabilities. This gives the agent the promise of handling complex scenarios in software development such as fixing an incomplete patch, adding new features, or taking over code written by others. We envision USEagent as the first draft of a future AI Software Engineer which can be a team member in future software development teams involving both AI and humans. To evaluate the efficacy of USEagent, we build a Unified Software Engineering bench (USEbench) comprising of myriad tasks such as coding, testing, and patching. USEbench is a judicious mixture of tasks from existing benchmarks such as SWE-bench, SWT-bench, and REPOCOD. In an evaluation on USEbench consisting of 1,271 repository-level software engineering tasks, USEagent shows improved efficacy compared to existing general agents such as OpenHands CodeActAgent. There exist gaps in the capabilities of USEagent for certain coding tasks, which provides hints on further developing the AI Software Engineer of the future.

As Large Language Models (LLMs) become increasingly integrated into everyday life and information ecosystems, concerns about their implicit biases continue to persist. While prior work has primarily examined socio-demographic and left--right political dimensions, little attention has been paid to how LLMs align with broader geopolitical value systems, particularly the democracy--authoritarianism spectrum. In this paper, we propose a novel methodology to assess such alignment, combining (1) the F-scale, a psychometric tool for measuring authoritarian tendencies, (2) FavScore, a newly introduced metric for evaluating model favorability toward world leaders, and (3) role-model probing to assess which figures are cited as general role-models by LLMs. We find that LLMs generally favor democratic values and leaders, but exhibit increased favorability toward authoritarian figures when prompted in Mandarin. Further, models are found to often cite authoritarian figures as role models, even outside explicit political contexts. These results shed light on ways LLMs may reflect and potentially reinforce global political ideologies, highlighting the importance of evaluating bias beyond conventional socio-political axes. Our code is available at: https://github.com/irenestrauss/Democratic-Authoritarian-Bias-LLMs.

Deep learning models have shown remarkable success in dermatological image analysis, offering potential for automated skin disease diagnosis. Previously, convolutional neural network(CNN) based architectures have achieved immense popularity and success in computer vision (CV) based task like skin image recognition, generation and video analysis. But with the emergence of transformer based models, CV tasks are now are nowadays carrying out using these models. Vision Transformers (ViTs) is such a transformer-based models that have shown success in computer vision. It uses self-attention mechanisms to achieve state-of-the-art performance across various tasks. However, their reliance on global attention mechanisms makes them susceptible to adversarial perturbations. This paper aims to investigate the susceptibility of ViTs for medical images to adversarial watermarking-a method that adds so-called imperceptible perturbations in order to fool models. By generating adversarial watermarks through Projected Gradient Descent (PGD), we examine the transferability of such attacks to CNNs and analyze the performance defense mechanism -- adversarial training. Results indicate that while performance is not compromised for clean images, ViTs certainly become much more vulnerable to adversarial attacks: an accuracy drop of as low as 27.6%. Nevertheless, adversarial training raises it up to 90.0%.