This work addresses the challenge of malware classification using machine learning by developing a novel dataset labeled at both the malware type and family levels. Raw binaries were collected from sources such as VirusShare, VX Underground, and MalwareBazaar, and subsequently labeled with family information parsed from binary names and type-level labels integrated from ClarAVy. The dataset includes 14 malware types and 17 malware families, and was processed using a unified feature extraction pipeline based on static analysis, particularly extracting features from Portable Executable headers, to support advanced classification tasks. The evaluation was focused on three key classification tasks. In the binary classification of malware versus benign samples, Random Forest and XGBoost achieved high accuracy on the full datasets, reaching 98.5% for type-based detection and 98.98% for family-based detection. When using truncated datasets of 1,000 samples to assess performance under limited data conditions, both models still performed strongly, achieving 97.6% for type-based detection and 98.66% for family-based detection. For interclass classification, which distinguishes between malware types or families, the models reached up to 97.5% accuracy on type-level tasks and up to 93.7% on family-level tasks. In the multiclass classification setting, which assigns samples to the correct type or family, SVM achieved 81.1% accuracy on type labels, while Random Forest and XGBoost reached approximately 73.4% on family labels. The results highlight practical trade-offs between accuracy and computational cost, and demonstrate that labeling at both the type and family levels enables more fine-grained and insightful malware classification. The work establishes a robust foundation for future research on advanced malware detection and classification.

The opacity of many supervised learning algorithms remains a key challenge, hindering scientific discovery and limiting broader deployment -- particularly in high-stakes domains. This paper develops model- and distribution-agnostic significance tests to assess the influence of input features in any regression or classification algorithm. Our method evaluates a feature's incremental contribution to model performance by masking its values across samples. Under the null hypothesis, the distribution of performance differences across a test set has a non-positive median. We construct a uniformly most powerful, randomized sign test for this median, yielding exact p-values for assessing feature significance and confidence intervals with exact coverage for estimating population-level feature importance. The approach requires minimal assumptions, avoids model retraining or auxiliary models, and remains computationally efficient even for large-scale, high-dimensional settings. Experiments on synthetic tasks validate its statistical and computational advantages, and applications to real-world data illustrate its practical utility.

In higher education, many institutions use algorithmic alerts to flag at-risk students and deliver advising at scale. While much research has focused on evaluating algorithmic predictions, relatively little is known about how discretionary interventions by human experts shape outcomes in algorithm-assisted settings. We study this question using rich quantitative and qualitative data from a randomized controlled trial of an algorithm-assisted advising program at Georgia State University. Taking a mixed-methods approach, we examine whether and how advisors use context unavailable to an algorithm to guide interventions and influence student success. We develop a causal graphical framework for human expertise in the interventional setting, extending prior work on discretion in purely predictive settings. We then test a necessary condition for discretionary expertise using structured advisor logs and student outcomes data, identifying several interventions that meet the criterion for statistical significance. Accordingly, we estimate that 2 out of 3 interventions taken by advisors in the treatment arm were plausibly "expertly targeted" to students using non-algorithmic context. Systematic qualitative analysis of advisor notes corroborates these findings, showing a pattern of advisors incorporating diverse forms of contextual information--such as personal circumstances, financial issues, and student engagement--into their decisions. Our results offer theoretical and practical insight into the real-world effectiveness of algorithm-supported college advising, and underscore the importance of accounting for human expertise in the design, evaluation, and implementation of algorithmic decision systems.

A new anomaly detection method called kernel outlier detection (KOD) is proposed. It is designed to address challenges of outlier detection in high-dimensional settings. The aim is to overcome limitations of existing methods, such as dependence on distributional assumptions or on hyperparameters that are hard to tune. KOD starts with a kernel transformation, followed by a projection pursuit approach. Its novelties include a new ensemble of directions to search over, and a new way to combine results of different direction types. This provides a flexible and lightweight approach for outlier detection. Our empirical evaluations illustrate the effectiveness of KOD on three small datasets with challenging structures, and on four large benchmark datasets.

Understanding and decoding brain activity from electroencephalography (EEG) signals is a fundamental challenge in neuroscience and AI, with applications in cognition, emotion recognition, diagnosis, and brain-computer interfaces. While recent EEG foundation models advance generalized decoding via unified architectures and large-scale pretraining, they adopt a scale-agnostic dense modeling paradigm inherited from NLP and vision. This design neglects a core property of neural activity: cross-scale spatiotemporal structure. EEG task patterns span a wide range of temporal and spatial scales, from short bursts to slow rhythms, and from localized cortical responses to distributed interactions. Ignoring this diversity leads to suboptimal representations and weak generalization. We propose CSBrain, a Cross-scale Spatiotemporal Brain foundation model for generalized EEG decoding. CSBrain introduces: (i) Cross-scale Spatiotemporal Tokenization (CST), which aggregates multi-scale features from localized temporal windows and anatomical brain regions into compact scale-aware tokens; and (ii) Structured Sparse Attention (SSA), which captures cross-window and cross-region dependencies, enhancing scale diversity while removing spurious correlations. CST and SSA are alternately stacked to progressively integrate multi-scale dependencies. Experiments on 11 EEG tasks across 16 datasets show that CSBrain consistently outperforms task-specific and foundation model baselines. These results establish cross-scale modeling as a key inductive bias and position CSBrain as a robust backbone for future brain-AI research.

Robot end users increasingly require accessible means of specifying tasks for robots to perform. Two common end-user programming paradigms include drag-and-drop interfaces and natural language programming. Although natural language interfaces harness an intuitive form of human communication, drag-and-drop interfaces enable users to meticulously and precisely dictate the key actions of the robot's task. In this paper, we investigate the degree to which both approaches can be combined. Specifically, we construct a large language model (LLM)-based pipeline that accepts natural language as input and produces human-like action sequences as output, specified at a level of granularity that a human would produce. We then compare these generated action sequences to another dataset of hand-specified action sequences. Although our results reveal that larger models tend to outperform smaller ones in the production of human-like action sequences, smaller models nonetheless achieve satisfactory performance.

This paper reconceptualises peer review as structured public commentary. Traditional academic validation is hindered by anonymity, latency, and gatekeeping. We propose a transparent, identity-linked, and reproducible system of scholarly evaluation anchored in open commentary. Leveraging blockchain for immutable audit trails and AI for iterative synthesis, we design a framework that incentivises intellectual contribution, captures epistemic evolution, and enables traceable reputational dynamics. This model empowers fields from computational science to the humanities, reframing academic knowledge as a living process rather than a static credential.

--Fall detection is critical to support the growing elderly population, projected to reach 2.1 billion by 2050. However, existing methods often face data scarcity challenges or compromise privacy. We propose a novel IoT -based Fall Detection as a Service (FDaaS) framework to assist the elderly in living independently and safely by accurately detecting falls. We address the challenges of data scarcity by utilizing a Fall Detection Generative Pre-trained Transformer (FD-GPT) that uses augmentation techniques. We developed a protocol to collect a comprehensive dataset of the elderly daily activities and fall events. This resulted in a real dataset that carefully mimics the elderly's routine. We rigorously evaluate and compare various models using this dataset. Experimental results show our approach achieves 90.72% accuracy and 89.33% precision in distinguishing between fall events and regular activities of daily living. The Internet of Things (IoT) enables everyday physical objects, or "things," to be connected to the Internet [1]. These objects are often equipped with pervasive intelligence capabilities. IoT devices' capabilities may be abstracted as IoT services [2]. An IoT service has a set of functional and non-functional, i.e., quality of service (QoS) properties.

Accurate intraoperative localization of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) is essential for the efficacy of Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) in patients with Parkinson's disease. While microelectrode recordings (MERs) provide rich electrophysiological information during DBS electrode implantation, current localization practices often rely on subjective interpretation of signal features. In this study, we propose a quantitative framework that leverages nonlinear dynamics and entropy-based metrics to classify neural activity recorded inside versus outside the STN. MER data from three patients were preprocessed using a robust artifact correction pipeline, segmented, and labelled based on surgical annotations. A comprehensive set of recurrence quantification analysis, nonlinear, and entropy features were extracted from each segment. Multiple supervised classifiers were trained on every combination of feature domains using stratified 10-fold cross-validation, followed by statistical comparison using paired Wilcoxon signed-rank tests with Holm-Bonferroni correction. The combination of entropy and nonlinear features yielded the highest discriminative power, and the Extra Trees classifier emerged as the best model with a cross-validated F1-score of 0.902+/-0.027 and ROC AUC of 0.887+/-0.055. Final evaluation on a 20% hold-out test set confirmed robust generalization (F1= 0.922, ROC AUC = 0.941). These results highlight the potential of nonlinear and entropy signal descriptors in supporting real-time, data-driven decision-making during DBS surgeries

Given the significant influence of lawmakers' political ideologies on legislative decision-making, analyzing their impact on transportation-related policymaking is of critical importance. This study introduces a novel framework that integrates a large language model (LLM) with explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) to analyze transportation-related legislative proposals. Legislative bill data from South Korea's 21st National Assembly were used to identify key factors shaping transportation policymaking. These include political affiliations and sponsor characteristics. The LLM was employed to classify transportation-related bill proposals through a stepwise filtering process based on keywords, sentences, and contextual relevance. XAI techniques were then applied to examine the relationships between political party affiliation and associated attributes. The results revealed that the number and proportion of conservative and progressive sponsors, along with district size and electoral population, were critical determinants shaping legislative outcomes. These findings suggest that both parties contributed to bipartisan legislation through different forms of engagement, such as initiating or supporting proposals. This integrated approach offers a valuable tool for understanding legislative dynamics and guiding future policy development, with broader implications for infrastructure planning and governance.