Deep Learning
DSAS: AUniversal Plug-and-Play Framework for Attention Optimization in Multi-Document Question Answering
While large language models (LLMs) show considerable promise across various fields, they have notable limitations in handling multi-document question answering (Multi-doc QA) tasks. The first challenge is long-range dependency modeling, where LLMs struggle to focus on key information in long texts, which weakens important semantic connections. Second, most LLMs suffer from the "lost-in-themiddle" issue, where they have difficulty processing information in the middle of long inputs. Current solutions either truncate global dependencies or demand costly finetuning, ultimately lacking a universal and simple solution for these challenges. To resolve these limitations, we propose Dual-Stage Adaptive Sharpening (DSAS) containing two modules.
SQL-R1: Training Natural Language to SQL Reasoning Model By Reinforcement Learning
Natural Language to SQL (NL2SQL) enables intuitive interactions with databases by transforming natural language queries into structured SQL statements. Despite recent advancements in enhancing human-computer interaction within database applications, significant challenges persist, particularly regarding the reasoning performance in complex scenarios involving multi-table joins and nested queries. Current methodologies primarily utilize supervised fine-tuning (SFT) to train the NL2SQL model, which may limit adaptability and interpretability in new environments (e.g., finance and healthcare). In order to enhance the reasoning performance of the NL2SQL model in the above complex situations, we introduce SQL-R1, a novel NL2SQL reasoning model trained by the reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms. We design a specialized RL-based reward function tailored for NL2SQL tasks and discussed the impact of cold start and synthetic data on the effectiveness of intensive training. In addition, we achieve competitive accuracy using only a tiny amount of synthetic NL2SQL data for augmented training and further explore data engineering for RL. In existing experiments, SQL-R1 achieves execution accuracy of 88.6% and 67.1% on the benchmark Spider and BIRD, respectively.
NeSyPr: Neurosymbolic Proceduralization For Efficient Embodied Reasoning
We address the challenge of adopting language models (LMs) for embodied tasks in dynamic environments, where online access to large-scale inference engines or symbolic planners is constrained due to latency, connectivity, and resource limitations. To this end, we present NESYPR, a novel embodied reasoning framework that compiles knowledge via neurosymbolic proceduralization, thereby equipping LM-based agents with structured, adaptive, and timely reasoning capabilities. In NESYPR, task-specific plans are first explicitly generated by a symbolic tool leveraging its declarative knowledge. These plans are then transformed into composable procedural representations that encode the plans' implicit production rules, enabling the resulting composed procedures to be seamlessly integrated into the LM's inference process. This neurosymbolic proceduralization abstracts and generalizes multi-step symbolic structured path-finding and reasoning into single-step LM inference, akin to human knowledge compilation. It supports efficient test-time inference without relying on external symbolic guidance, making it well suited for deployment in latency-sensitive and resource-constrained physical systems. We evaluate NESYPR on the embodied benchmarks PDDLGym, VirtualHome, and ALFWorld, demonstrating its efficient reasoning capabilities over large-scale reasoning models and a symbolic planner, while using more compact LMs.
Think-RM: Enabling Long-Horizon Reasoning in Generative Reward Models
Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) has become a powerful posttraining paradigm for aligning large language models with human preferences. A core challenge in RLHF is constructing accurate reward signals, where the conventional Bradley-Terry reward models (BTRMs) often suffer from sensitivity to data size and coverage, as well as vulnerability to reward hacking. Generative reward models (GenRMs) offer a more robust alternative by generating chain-of-thought (CoT) rationales followed by a final verdict. However, existing GenRMs rely on shallow, vertically scaled reasoning, limiting their capacity to handle nuanced or complex tasks. Moreover, their pairwise preference outputs are incompatible with standard RLHF algorithms that require pointwise reward signals. In this work, we introduce Think-RM, a training framework that enables long-horizon reasoning in GenRMs by modeling an internal thinking process. Rather than producing structured, externally provided rationales, Think-RM generates flexible, self-guided reasoning traces that support advanced capabilities such as self-reflection, hypothetical reasoning, and divergent reasoning.
Towards Building Model/Prompt-Transferable Attackers against Large Vision-Language Models
Although Large Vision-Language Models (LVLMs) exhibit impressive multimodal capabilities, their vulnerability to adversarial examples has raised serious security concerns. Existing LVLM attackers simply optimize adversarial images that easily overfit a certain model/prompt, making them ineffective once they are transferred to attack a different model/prompt. Motivated by this research gap, this paper aims to develop a more powerful attack that is transferable to black-box LVLM models of different structures and task-aware prompts of different semantics. Specifically, we introduce a new perspective of information theory to investigate LVLMs' transferable characteristics by exploring the relative dependence between outputs of the LVLM model and input adversarial samples. Our empirical observations suggest that enlarging/decreasing the mutual information between outputs and the disentangled adversarial/benign patterns of input images helps to generate more agnostic perturbations for misleading LVLMs' perception with better transferability. In particular, we formulate the complicated calculation of information gain as an estimation problem and incorporate such informative constraints into the adversarial learning process. Extensive experiments on various LVLM models/prompts demonstrate our significant transfer-attack performance.
Solving and Learning Partial Differential Equations with Variational Q-Exponential Processes
Solving and learning partial differential equations (PDEs) lies at the core of physicsinformed machine learning. Traditional numerical methods, such as finite difference and finite element approaches, are rooted in domain-specific techniques and often lack scalability. Recent advances have introduced neural networks and Gaussian processes (GPs) as flexible tools for automating PDE solving and incorporating physical knowledge into learning frameworks. While GPs offer tractable predictive distributions and a principled probabilistic foundation, they may be suboptimal in capturing complex behaviors such as sharp transitions or non-smooth dynamics. To address this limitation, we propose the use of the q-exponential process (Q-EP), a recently developed generalization of GPs designed to better handle data with abrupt changes and to more accurately model derivative information. We advocate for Q-EP as a superior alternative to GPs in solving PDEs and associated inverse problems. Leveraging sparse variational inference, our method enables principled uncertainty quantification - a capability not naturally afforded by neural network-based approaches. Through a series of experiments, including the Eikonal equation, Burgers' equation, and an inverse Darcy flow problem, we demonstrate that the variational Q-EP method consistently yields more accurate solutions while providing meaningful uncertainty estimates.
3BASiL: An Algorithmic Framework for Sparseplus Low-Rank Compression of LLMs
Sparse plus Low-Rank (S + LR) decomposition of Large Language Models (LLMs) has emerged as a promising direction in model compression, aiming to decompose pre-trained model weights into a sum of sparse and low-rank matrices W S + LR. Despite recent progress, existing methods often suffer from substantial performance degradation compared to dense models. In this work, we introduce 3BASiL-TM, an efficient one-shot post-training method for (S + LR) decomposition of LLMs that addresses this gap. Our approach first introduces a novel 3-Block Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) method, termed 3BASiL, to minimize the layer-wise reconstruction error with convergence guarantees.
Higher-Order Learning with Graph Neural Networks via Hypergraph Encodings
Many datasets have inherent "multi-way" structure, where downstream tasks depend on relationships between groups of entities that ordinary graphs, whose edges are pairwise relationships, cannot represent (Bick et al., 2023; Benson et al., 2021; Schaub et al., 2021). Hypergraphs overcome this by allowing hyperedges that connect any number of vertices.
Joint Hierarchical Representation Learning of Samples and Features via Informed Tree-Wasserstein Distance
Yet, most existing approaches for hierarchical representation learning consider only one mode at a time. In this work, we propose an unsupervised method for jointly learning hierarchical representations of samples and features via TreeWasserstein Distance (TWD). Our method alternates between the two data modes. It first constructs a tree for one mode, then computes a TWD for the other mode based on that tree, and finally uses the resulting TWD to build the second mode's tree.