Multi-view clustering leverages complementary representations from diverse sources to enhance performance. However, real-world data often suffer incomplete cases due to factors like privacy concerns and device malfunctions. A key challenge is effectively utilizing available instances to recover missing views. Existing methods frequently overlook the heterogeneity among views during recovery, leading to significant distribution discrepancies between recovered and true data. Additionally, many approaches focus on cross-view correlations, neglecting insights from intra-view reliable structure and cross-view clustering structure. To address these issues, we propose BURG, a novel method for incomplete multi-view clustering with distriBution dUal-consistency Recovery Guidance. We treat each sample as a distinct category and perform cross-view distribution transfer to predict the distribution space of missing views. To compensate for the lack of reliable category information, we design a dual-consistency guided recovery strategy that includes intra-view alignment guided by neighbor-aware consistency and cross-view alignment guided by prototypical consistency. Extensive experiments on benchmarks demonstrate the superiority of BURG in the incomplete multi-view scenario.

In this paper, we introduce a novel image-goal navigation approach, named RFSG. Our focus lies in leveraging the fine-grained connections between goals, observations, and the environment within limited image data, all the while keeping the navigation architecture simple and lightweight. To this end, we propose the spatial-channel attention mechanism, enabling the network to learn the importance of multi-dimensional features to fuse the goal and observation features. In addition, a selfdistillation mechanism is incorporated to further enhance the feature representation capabilities. Given that the navigation task needs surrounding environmental information for more efficient navigation, we propose an image scene graph to establish feature associations at both the image and object levels, effectively encoding the surrounding scene information. Crossscene performance validation was conducted on the Gibson and HM3D datasets, and the proposed method achieved stateof-the-art results among mainstream methods, with a speed of up to 53.5 frames per second on an RTX3080. This contributes to the realization of end-to-end image-goal navigation in realworld scenarios. The implementation and model of our method have been released at: https://github.com/nubot-nudt/RFSG.

Cognition swiftly breaks high-dimensional sensory streams into familiar parts and uncovers their relations. Why do structures emerge, and how do they enable learning, generalization, and prediction? What computational principles underlie this core aspect of perception and intelligence? A sensory stream, simplified, is a one-dimensional sequence. In learning such sequences, we naturally segment them into parts -- a process known as chunking. In the first project, I investigated factors influencing chunking in a serial reaction time task and showed that humans adapt to underlying chunks while balancing speed and accuracy. Building on this, I developed models that learn chunks and parse sequences chunk by chunk. Normatively, I proposed chunking as a rational strategy for discovering recurring patterns and nested hierarchies, enabling efficient sequence factorization. Learned chunks serve as reusable primitives for transfer, composition, and mental simulation -- letting the model compose the new from the known. I demonstrated this model's ability to learn hierarchies in single and multi-dimensional sequences and highlighted its utility for unsupervised pattern discovery. The second part moves from concrete to abstract sequences. I taxonomized abstract motifs and examined their role in sequence memory. Behavioral evidence suggests that humans exploit pattern redundancies for compression and transfer. I proposed a non-parametric hierarchical variable model that learns both chunks and abstract variables, uncovering invariant symbolic patterns. I showed its similarity to human learning and compared it to large language models. Taken together, this thesis suggests that chunking and abstraction as simple computational principles enable structured knowledge acquisition in hierarchically organized sequences, from simple to complex, concrete to abstract.

Federated learning (FL) is a distributed machine learning approach that enables multiple local clients and a central server to collaboratively train a model while keeping the data on their own devices. First-order methods, particularly those incorporating variance reduction techniques, are the most widely used FL algorithms due to their simple implementation and stable performance. However, these methods tend to be slow and require a large number of communication rounds to reach the global minimizer. We propose FedOSAA, a novel approach that preserves the simplicity of first-order methods while achieving the rapid convergence typically associated with second-order methods. Our approach applies one Anderson acceleration (AA) step following classical local updates based on first-order methods with variance reduction, such as FedSVRG and SCAFFOLD, during local training. This AA step is able to leverage curvature information from the history points and gives a new update that approximates the Newton-GMRES direction, thereby significantly improving the convergence. We establish a local linear convergence rate to the global minimizer of FedOSAA for smooth and strongly convex loss functions. Numerical comparisons show that FedOSAA substantially improves the communication and computation efficiency of the original first-order methods, achieving performance comparable to second-order methods like GIANT.

The choice of neural network features can have a large impact on both the accuracy and speed of the network. Despite the current industry shift towards large transformer models, specialized binary classifiers remain critical for numerous practical applications where computational efficiency and low latency are essential. Neural network features tend to be developed homogeneously, resulting in slower or less accurate networks when testing against multiple datasets. In this paper, we show the effectiveness of Neuvo NAS+ a novel Python implementation of an extended Neural Architecture Search (NAS+) which allows the user to optimise the training parameters of a network as well as the network's architecture. We provide an in-depth analysis of the importance of catering a network's architecture to each dataset. We also describe the design of the Neuvo NAS+ system that selects network features on a task-specific basis including network training hyper-parameters such as the number of epochs and batch size. Results show that the Neuvo NAS+ task-specific approach significantly outperforms several machine learning approaches such as Naive Bayes, C4.5, Support Vector Machine and a standard Artificial Neural Network for solving a range of binary classification problems in terms of accuracy. Our experiments demonstrate substantial diversity in evolved network architectures across different datasets, confirming the value of task-specific optimization. Additionally, Neuvo NAS+ outperforms other evolutionary algorithm optimisers in terms of both accuracy and computational efficiency, showing that properly optimized binary classifiers can match or exceed the performance of more complex models while requiring significantly fewer computational resources.

Ergodic exploration has spawned a lot of interest in mobile robotics due to its ability to design time trajectories that match desired spatial coverage statistics. However, current ergodic approaches are for continuous spaces, which require detailed sensory information at each point and can lead to fractal-like trajectories that cannot be tracked easily. This paper presents a new ergodic approach for graph-based discretization of continuous spaces. It also introduces a new time-discounted ergodicity metric, wherein early visitations of information-rich nodes are weighted more than late visitations. A Markov chain synthesized using a convex program is shown to converge more rapidly to time-discounted ergodicity than the traditional fastest mixing Markov chain. The resultant ergodic traversal method is used within a hierarchical framework for active inspection of confined spaces with the goal of detecting anomalies robustly using SLAM-driven Bayesian hypothesis testing. Both simulation and physical experiments on a ground robot show the advantages of this framework over greedy and random exploration methods for left-behind foreign object debris detection in a ballast tank.

Earth observation (EO) data features diverse sensing platforms with varying spectral bands, spatial resolutions, and sensing modalities. While most prior work has constrained inputs to fixed sensors, a new class of any-sensor foundation models able to process arbitrary sensors has recently emerged. Contributing to this line of work, we propose Panopticon, an any-sensor foundation model built on the DINOv2 framework. We extend DINOv2 by (1) treating images of the same geolocation across sensors as natural augmentations, (2) subsampling channels to diversify spectral input, and (3) adding a cross attention over channels as a flexible patch embedding mechanism. By encoding the wavelength and modes of optical and synthetic aperture radar sensors, respectively, Panopticon can effectively process any combination of arbitrary channels. In extensive evaluations, we achieve state-of-the-art performance on GEO-Bench, especially on the widely-used Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 sensors, while out-competing other any-sensor models, as well as domain adapted fixed-sensor models on unique sensor configurations. Panopticon enables immediate generalization to both existing and future satellite platforms, advancing sensor-agnostic EO.

Vision language models (VLMs) demonstrate strong capabilities in jointly processing visual and textual data. However, they often incur substantial computational overhead due to redundant visual information, particularly in long-form video scenarios. Existing approaches predominantly focus on either vision token pruning, which may overlook spatio-temporal dependencies, or keyframe selection, which identifies informative frames but discards others, thus disrupting contextual continuity. In this work, we propose KVTP (Keyframe-oriented Vision Token Pruning), a novel framework that overcomes the drawbacks of token pruning and keyframe selection. By adaptively assigning pruning rates based on frame relevance to the query, KVTP effectively retains essential contextual information while significantly reducing redundant computation. To thoroughly evaluate the long-form video understanding capacities of VLMs, we curated and reorganized subsets from VideoMME, EgoSchema, and NextQA into a unified benchmark named SparseKV-QA that highlights real-world scenarios with sparse but crucial events. Our experiments with VLMs of various scales show that KVTP can reduce token usage by 80% without compromising spatiotemporal and contextual consistency, significantly cutting computation while maintaining the performance. These results demonstrate our approach's effectiveness in efficient long-video processing, facilitating more scalable VLM deployment.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) is a highly prevalent and frequently underdiagnosed condition characterized by persistent, intrusive preoccupations with perceived defects in physical appearance. In this extended analysis, we employ multiple machine learning approaches to predict treatment outcomes -- specifically treatment response and remission -- with an emphasis on interpretability to ensure clinical relevance and utility. Across the various models investigated, treatment credibility emerged as the most potent predictor, surpassing traditional markers such as baseline symptom severity or comorbid conditions. Notably, while simpler models (e.g., logistic regression and support vector machines) achieved competitive predictive performance, decision tree analyses provided unique insights by revealing clinically interpretable threshold values in credibility scores. These thresholds can serve as practical guideposts for clinicians when tailoring interventions or allocating treatment resources. We further contextualize our findings within the broader literature on BDD, addressing technology-based therapeutics, digital interventions, and the psychosocial determinants of treatment engagement. An extensive array of references situates our results within current research on BDD prevalence, suicidality risks, and digital innovation. Our work underscores the potential of integrating rigorous statistical methodologies with transparent machine learning models. By systematically identifying modifiable predictors -- such as treatment credibility -- we propose a pathway toward more targeted, personalized, and ultimately efficacious interventions for individuals with BDD.

Photoplethysmography (PPG) sensors have been widely used in consumer wearable devices to monitor heart rates (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV). Despite the prevalence, PPG signals can be contaminated by motion artifacts induced from daily activities. Existing approaches mainly use the amplitude information to perform PPG peak detection. However, these approaches cannot accurately identify peaks, since motion artifacts may bring random and significant amplitude variations. To improve the performance of PPG peak detection, the time information can be used. Specifically, heart rates exhibit temporal consistency that consecutive heartbeat intervals in a normal person can have limited variations. To leverage the temporal consistency, we propose the Temporal Attentive U-Net, i.e., TAU, to accurately detect peaks from PPG signals. In TAU, we design a time module that encodes temporal consistency in temporal embeddings. We integrate the amplitude information with temporal embeddings using the attention mechanism to estimate peak labels. Our experimental results show that TAU outperforms eleven baselines on heart rate estimation by more than 22.4%. Our TAU model achieves the best performance across various Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) levels. Moreover, we achieve Pearson correlation coefficients higher than 0.9 (p < 0.01) on estimating HRV features from low-noise-level PPG signals.