Deep Learning
HiGraph: A Large-Scale Hierarchical Graph Dataset for Malware Analysis
Chen, Han, Wang, Hanchen, Chen, Hongmei, Zhang, Ying, Qin, Lu, Zhang, Wenjie
The advancement of graph-based malware analysis is critically limited by the absence of large-scale datasets that capture the inherent hierarchical structure of software. Existing methods often oversimplify programs into single level graphs, failing to model the crucial semantic relationship between high-level functional interactions and low-level instruction logic. To bridge this gap, we introduce \dataset, the largest public hierarchical graph dataset for malware analysis, comprising over \textbf{200M} Control Flow Graphs (CFGs) nested within \textbf{595K} Function Call Graphs (FCGs). This two-level representation preserves structural semantics essential for building robust detectors resilient to code obfuscation and malware evolution. We demonstrate HiGraph's utility through a large-scale analysis that reveals distinct structural properties of benign and malicious software, establishing it as a foundational benchmark for the community. The dataset and tools are publicly available at https://higraph.org.
Forecasting Future DDoS Attacks Using Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) Model
Yeen, Kong Mun, Noor, Rafidah Md, Shah, Wahidah Md, Hassan, Aslinda, Munir, Muhammad Umair
This paper forecasts future Distributed Denial - of - Service (DDoS) attacks us ing deep learning models. Although several studies address forecasting DDoS attacks, they remain relatively limited compared to detection - focused research . By studying the current trends and forecasting based on newer and updated datasets, mitigation plans against the attacks can be planned and formulated. The methodology used in this research work conforms to the Cross Industry Standard Process for Data Mining (CRISP - DM) model. Leveraging cyberattack data from the COVID - 19 period (2019 - 2020), sourced from Digital Attack Map and compiled by Arbor Networks, the study aims to identify recent attack trends and forecast future activity to support proactive mitigation strategies. The dataset was examined using statistical analysis techniques to identify prevailing patterns, with emphasis on the frequency of attac ks, the duration of attack instances, and the maximum throughput recorded during each incident . Compared to other deep learning models, the LSTM model is proposed for its ability to learn long - term temporal patterns in evolving DDoS traffic. The performanc e of LSTM model was evaluated using Mean Squared Error (MSE) under varying neuron counts and window sizes. While the model demonstrated limited predictive accuracy in terms of absolute values, the visual comparison between the predicted and actual data usi ng line charts revealed close alignment in trend patterns . This suggests that the model captures the underlying temporal dynamics of the data, thereby providing a promising foundation for future model optimization and performance enhancement. Many cyberattack methods are well known, including but not limited to phishing, spoofing, malware infections, ransomware, and Denial - of - Service (DoS) attacks. A DoS attack occurs when an attacker attempts to disable a service, server, or network . Attackers attempt to make services inaccessible by overwhelming the available resources on the hosting server, infrastructure and/or systems. However, DoS can be eas ily track ed, as it could contai n information about the attacker that can be obtained from network traces and attack logs.
How Instruction-Tuning Imparts Length Control: A Cross-Lingual Mechanistic Analysis
Rocchetti, Elisabetta, Ferrara, Alfio
Adhering to explicit length constraints, such as generating text with a precise word count, remains a significant challenge for Large Language Models (LLMs). This study aims at investigating the differences between foundation models and their instruction-tuned counterparts, on length-controlled text generation in English and Italian. We analyze both performance and internal component contributions using Cumulative Weighted Attribution, a metric derived from Direct Logit Attribution. Our findings reveal that instruction-tuning substantially improves length control, primarily by specializing components in deeper model layers. Specifically, attention heads in later layers of IT models show increasingly positive contributions, particularly in English. In Italian, while attention contributions are more attenuated, final-layer MLPs exhibit a stronger positive role, suggesting a compensatory mechanism. These results indicate that instruction-tuning reconfigures later layers for task adherence, with component-level strategies potentially adapting to linguistic context.
LUCIE-3D: A three-dimensional climate emulator for forced responses
Guan, Haiwen, Arcomano, Troy, Chattopadhyay, Ashesh, Maulik, Romit
We introduce LUCIE-3D, a lightweight three-dimensional climate emulator designed to capture the vertical structure of the atmosphere, respond to climate change forcings, and maintain computational efficiency with long-term stability. Building on the original LUCIE-2D framework, LUCIE-3D employs a Spherical Fourier Neural Operator (SFNO) backbone and is trained on 30 years of ERA5 reanalysis data spanning eight vertical ฯ-levels. The model incorporates atmospheric CO2 as a forcing variable and optionally integrates prescribed sea surface temperature (SST) to simulate coupled ocean--atmosphere dynamics. Results demonstrate that LUCIE-3D successfully reproduces climatological means, variability, and long-term climate change signals, including surface warming and stratospheric cooling under increasing CO2 concentrations. The model further captures key dynamical processes such as equatorial Kelvin waves, the Madden--Julian Oscillation, and annular modes, while showing credible behavior in the statistics of extreme events. Despite requiring longer training than its 2D predecessor, LUCIE-3D remains efficient, training in under five hours on four GPUs. Its combination of stability, physical consistency, and accessibility makes it a valuable tool for rapid experimentation, ablation studies, and the exploration of coupled climate dynamics, with potential applications extending to paleoclimate research and future Earth system emulation.
Generative KI fรผr TA
Eppler, Wolfgang, Heil, Reinhard
Many scientists use generative AI in their scientific work. People working in technology assessment (TA) are no exception. TA's approach to generative AI is twofold: on the one hand, generative AI is used for TA work, and on the other hand, generative AI is the subject of TA research. After briefly outlining the phenomenon of generative AI and formulating requirements for its use in TA, the following article discusses in detail the structural causes of the problems associated with it. Although generative AI is constantly being further developed, the structurally induced risks remain. The article concludes with proposed solutions and brief notes on their feasibility, as well as some examples of the use of generative AI in TA work.
Privacy-Utility Trade-off in Data Publication: A Bilevel Optimization Framework with Curvature-Guided Perturbation
Yin, Yi, Zhang, Guangquan, Zuo, Hua, Lu, Jie
Machine learning models require datasets for effective training, but directly sharing raw data poses significant privacy risk such as membership inference attacks (MIA). To mitigate the risk, privacy-preserving techniques such as data perturbation, generalization, and synthetic data generation are commonly utilized. However, these methods often degrade data accuracy, specificity, and diversity, limiting the performance of downstream tasks and thus reducing data utility. Therefore, striking an optimal balance between privacy preservation and data utility remains a critical challenge. To address this issue, we introduce a novel bilevel optimization framework for the publication of private datasets, where the upper-level task focuses on data utility and the lower-level task focuses on data privacy. In the upper-level task, a discriminator guides the generation process to ensure that perturbed latent variables are mapped to high-quality samples, maintaining fidelity for downstream tasks. In the lower-level task, our framework employs local extrinsic curvature on the data manifold as a quantitative measure of individual vulnerability to MIA, providing a geometric foundation for targeted privacy protection. By perturbing samples toward low-curvature regions, our method effectively suppresses distinctive feature combinations that are vulnerable to MIA. Through alternating optimization of both objectives, we achieve a synergistic balance between privacy and utility. Extensive experimental evaluations demonstrate that our method not only enhances resistance to MIA in downstream tasks but also surpasses existing methods in terms of sample quality and diversity.
Attributes as Textual Genes: Leveraging LLMs as Genetic Algorithm Simulators for Conditional Synthetic Data Generation
Han, Guangzeng, Liu, Weisi, Huang, Xiaolei
Large Language Models (LLMs) excel at generating synthetic data, but ensuring its quality and diversity remains challenging. We propose Genetic Prompt, a novel framework that combines genetic algorithms with LLMs to augment synthetic data generation. Our approach treats semantic text attributes as gene sequences and leverages the LLM to simulate crossover and mutation operations. This genetic process enhances data quality and diversity by creating novel attribute combinations, yielding synthetic distributions closer to real-world data. To optimize parent selection, we also integrate an active learning scheme that expands the offspring search space. Our experiments on multiple NLP tasks reveal several key findings: Genetic Prompt not only significantly outperforms state-of-the-art baselines but also shows robust performance across various generator model sizes and scales. Moreover, we demonstrate that fusing our synthetic data with the original training set significantly boosts downstream model performance, particularly for class-imbalanced scenarios. Our findings validate that Genetic Prompt is an effective method for producing high-quality synthetic data for a wide range of NLP applications.
DeepSeek performs better than other Large Language Models in Dental Cases
Zhang, Hexian, Yan, Xinyu, Yang, Yanqi, Jin, Lijian, Yang, Ping, Wang, Junwen
Division of Epidemiology, Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, AZ 85259, USA Hexian Zhang: chordzhang@connect.hku.hk Tel: (852) 2852 0128, Fax: (852) 2548 9464 A bstract word count: 1 85 T otal word count: 31 67 T otal number of tables: 2 T otal number of figures: 3 N umber of references: 32 Keywords Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning/Machine Learning, Dental Education, Electronic dental records, Periodontal Medicine Abstract Aims: Periodontology, with its wealth of structured clinical data, offers an ideal setting to evaluate the reasoning abilities of large language models (LLMs). This study aims to assess four LLMs (GPT - 4o, Gemini 2.0 Flash, Copilot, and DeepSeek V3) in interpreting longitudinal periodontal case vignettes through open - ended tasks. Materials and Methods: Thirty - four standardized longitudinal periodontal case vignettes were curated, generating 258 open - ended question - answer pairs. Each model was prompted to review case details and produce responses. Performance was evaluated using automated metrics (faithfulness, answer relevancy, readability) and blinded assessments by licensed dentists on a five - point Likert scale. Results: DeepSeek V3 achieved the highest median faithfulness score (0.528), outperforming GPT - 4o (0.457), Gemini 2.0 Flash (0.421), and Copilot (0.367).
StructCoh: Structured Contrastive Learning for Context-Aware Text Semantic Matching
Text semantic matching requires nuanced understanding of both structural relationships and fine-grained semantic distinctions. While pre-trained language models excel at capturing token-level interactions, they often overlook hierarchical structural patterns and struggle with subtle semantic discrimination. In this paper, we proposed StructCoh, a graph-enhanced contrastive learning framework that synergistically combines structural reasoning with representation space optimization. Our approach features two key innovations: (1) A dual-graph encoder constructs semantic graphs via dependency parsing and topic modeling, then employs graph isomorphism networks to propagate structural features across syntactic dependencies and cross-document concept nodes. (2) A hierarchical contrastive objective enforces consistency at multiple granularities: node-level contrastive regularization preserves core semantic units, while graph-aware contrastive learning aligns inter-document structural semantics through both explicit and implicit negative sampling strategies. Experiments on three legal document matching benchmarks and academic plagiarism detection datasets demonstrate significant improvements over state-of-the-art methods. Notably, StructCoh achieves 86.7% F1-score (+6.2% absolute gain) on legal statute matching by effectively identifying argument structure similarities.
Synesthesia of Machines (SoM)-Based Task-Driven MIMO System for Image Transmission
Li, Sijiang, Zhang, Rongqing, Cheng, Xiang, Tang, Jian
--T o support cooperative perception (CP) of networked mobile agents in dynamic scenarios, the efficient and robust transmission of sensory data is a critical challenge. Deep learning-based joint source-channel coding (JSCC) has demonstrated promising results for image transmission under adverse channel conditions, outperforming traditional rule-based codecs. While recent works have explored to combine JSCC with the widely adopted multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology, these approaches are still limited to the discrete-time analog transmission (DT A T) model and simple tasks. Given the limited performance of existing MIMO JSCC schemes in supporting complex CP tasks for networked mobile agents with digital MIMO communication systems, this paper presents a Synesthesia of Machines (SoM)-based task-driven MIMO system for image transmission, referred to as SoM-MIMO. By leveraging the structural properties of the feature pyramid for perceptual tasks and the channel properties of the closed-loop MIMO communication system, SoM-MIMO enables efficient and robust digital MIMO transmission of images. Experimental results have shown that compared with two JSCC baseline schemes, our approach achieves average mAP improvements of 6.30 and 10.48 across all SNR levels, while maintaining identical communication overhead. N the era of beyond fifth generation (B5G) and sixth generation (6G), a large number of mobile agents, including autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and humanoid robots, etc., will interact in real-time and execute diverse intelligent functions, revolutionizing industries and daily life. To enable diverse intelligent functionalities, such as decision-making and task execution, accurate environmental perception--encompassing the acquisition of object position, size, and category--is essential. Manuscript received 24 April 2025; revised 20 July 2025; accepted 26 August 2025. This work was supported in part by the by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 62125101, Grant 62341101, and Grant 62271351; in part by the New Cornerstone Science Foundation through the XPLORER PRIZE. Rongqing Zhang is with Intelligent Transportation Thrust, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, China (email: rongqingz@tongji.edu.cn).