Multi-task model merging offers an efficient solution for integrating knowledge from multiple fine-tuned models, mitigating the significant computational and storage demands associated with multi-task training. Despite the promising performance of TA, conflicts can arise among the task vectors, particularly when different tasks require distinct model adaptations. In this paper, we formally define this issue as knowledge conflicts, characterized by the performance degradation of one task after merging with a model fine-tuned for another task. Restricting parameter merging within this trust region, TATR can effectively alleviate knowledge conflicts. Moreover, TATR serves as both an independent approach and a plug-and-play module compatible with a wide range of TAbased methods. Extensive empirical evaluations on eight distinct datasets robustly demonstrate that TATR improves the multi-task performance of several TA-based model merging methods by an observable margin. The growing adoption of large foundation models is accompanied by significant practical challenges in terms of computational and storage demands (Kaplan et al., 2020). To address these challenges, multi-task model merging (Matena & Raffel, 2022) has emerged as a promising solution. Here task vectors are the difference in model parameters between the pre-trained foundation model and its fine-tuned version on a specific task. This approach builds a high-performance multi-task model by simple arithmetic operations in the model parameter space, thereby reducing computational overheads associated with fine-tuning on multiple tasks. Despite their successes, task arithmetic and its variants (Yadav et al., 2023; Wang et al., 2024; Yang et al., 2024b;a) still suffer from conflicts between task vectors.

Contextual Partitioning introduces an innovative approach to enhancing the architectural design of large-scale computational models through the dynamic segmentation of parameters into context-aware regions. This methodology emphasizes the importance of task-specific specialization, achieved through adaptive parameter allocation mechanisms that align with the linguistic features of input data. Experimental evaluations demonstrated substantial improvements in accuracy, perplexity, and contextual coherence across a variety of linguistic tasks, highlighting the adaptability and scalability of the proposed framework. By reducing redundancy and enhancing computational efficiency, Contextual Partitioning not only streamlines model operations but also expands the scope of applications for advanced language processing systems. The approach operates autonomously, requiring no external fine-tuning, thereby addressing a significant limitation in conventional parameter optimization techniques. Empirical results demonstrate the effectiveness of gradient-driven segmentation, enabling models to dynamically recalibrate and specialize in response to task-specific demands. Furthermore, resource utilization metrics reveal notable reductions in memory usage and training times, confirming the efficiency of the approach. Observations from qualitative analyses illustrate improved contextual coherence and logical flow in generated outputs, reinforcing the practical value of this technique. The findings collectively demonstrate the potential for Contextual Partitioning to redefine the scalability and adaptability of computational language architectures in diverse and complex domains.

Accurate classification of histological subtypes of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is essential in the era of precision medicine, yet current invasive techniques are not always feasible and may lead to clinical complications. This study presents a multi-stage intermediate fusion approach to classify NSCLC subtypes from CT and PET images. Our method integrates the two modalities at different stages of feature extraction, using voxel-wise fusion to exploit complementary information across varying abstraction levels while preserving spatial correlations. We compare our method against unimodal approaches using only CT or PET images to demonstrate the benefits of modality fusion, and further benchmark it against early and late fusion techniques to highlight the advantages of intermediate fusion during feature extraction. Additionally, we compare our model with the only existing intermediate fusion method for histological subtype classification using PET/CT images. Our results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms all alternatives across key metrics, with an accuracy and AUC equal to 0.724 and 0.681, respectively. This non-invasive approach has the potential to significantly improve diagnostic accuracy, facilitate more informed treatment decisions, and advance personalized care in lung cancer management.

In the past years, YOLO-series models have emerged as the leading approaches in the area of real-time object detection. Many studies pushed up the baseline to a higher level by modifying the architecture, augmenting data and designing new losses. However, we find previous models still suffer from information fusion problem, although Feature Pyramid Network (FPN) and Path Aggregation Network (PANet) have alleviated this. Therefore, this study provides an advanced Gatherand-Distribute mechanism (GD) mechanism, which is realized with convolution and self-attention operations. This new designed model named as Gold-YOLO, which boosts the multi-scale feature fusion capabilities and achieves an ideal balance between latency and accuracy across all model scales.

Researchers often face data fusion problems, where multiple data sources are available, each capturing a distinct subset of variables. While problem formulations typically take the data as given, in practice, data acquisition can be an ongoing process. In this paper, we introduce the problem of deciding, at each time, which data source to sample from. Our goal is to estimate a given functional of the parameters of a probabilistic model as efficiently as possible. We propose online moment selection (OMS), a framework in which structural assumptions are encoded as moment conditions.

Deep neural networks provide reliable solutions for many classification and regression tasks; however, their application in real-time wireless systems with simple sensor networks is limited due to high energy consumption and significant bandwidth needs. This study proposes a multi-sensor wireless inference system with memristor-based analog computing. Given the sensors' limited computational capabilities, the features from the network's front end are transmitted to a central device where an $L_p$-norm inspired approximation of the maximum operation is employed to achieve transformation-invariant features, enabling efficient over-the-air transmission. We also introduce a trainable over-the-air sensor fusion method based on $L_p$-norm inspired combining function that customizes sensor fusion to match the network and sensor distribution characteristics, enhancing adaptability. To address the energy constraints of sensors, we utilize memristors, known for their energy-efficient in-memory computing, enabling analog-domain computations that reduce energy use and computational overhead in edge computing. This dual approach of memristors and $L_p$-norm inspired sensor fusion fosters energy-efficient computational and transmission paradigms and serves as a practical energy-efficient solution with minimal performance loss.

Large Vision-Language Models (LVLMs) have demonstrated impressive capabilities in multimodal tasks, but their performance is often constrained by the lack of external knowledge integration, limiting their ability to handle knowledge-intensive tasks such as visual question answering and reasoning. To address this challenge, we propose a novel method, Adaptive Knowledge-Guided Pretraining for Large Vision-Language Models (AKGP-LVLM), which dynamically incorporates structured and unstructured knowledge into LVLMs during pretraining and fine-tuning. Our approach employs a knowledge encoder to represent external knowledge, a retrieval mechanism to select task-relevant information, and a dynamic adaptor to align multimodal and knowledge representations effectively. We evaluate our method on four benchmark datasets, demonstrating significant performance improvements over state-of-the-art models. Furthermore, human evaluations highlight the superior correctness and relevance of our model's outputs. Extensive analyses confirm the robustness, efficiency, and scalability of AKGP-LVLM, making it a compelling solution for real-world knowledge-intensive tasks.

Visual-Spatial Systems has become increasingly essential in concrete crack inspection. However, existing methods often lacks adaptability to diverse scenarios, exhibits limited robustness in image-based approaches, and struggles with curved or complex geometries. To address these limitations, an innovative framework for two-dimensional (2D) crack detection, three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction, and 3D automatic crack measurement was proposed by integrating computer vision technologies and multi-modal Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) in this study. Firstly, building on a base DeepLabv3+ segmentation model, and incorporating specific refinements utilizing foundation model Segment Anything Model (SAM), we developed a crack segmentation method with strong generalization across unfamiliar scenarios, enabling the generation of precise 2D crack masks. To enhance the accuracy and robustness of 3D reconstruction, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) point clouds were utilized together with image data and segmentation masks. By leveraging both image- and LiDAR-SLAM, we developed a multi-frame and multi-modal fusion framework that produces dense, colorized point clouds, effectively capturing crack semantics at a 3D real-world scale. Furthermore, the crack geometric attributions were measured automatically and directly within 3D dense point cloud space, surpassing the limitations of conventional 2D image-based measurements. This advancement makes the method suitable for structural components with curved and complex 3D geometries. Experimental results across various concrete structures highlight the significant improvements and unique advantages of the proposed method, demonstrating its effectiveness, accuracy, and robustness in real-world applications.

Healthcare systems worldwide face persistent challenges in efficiency, accessibility, and personalization. Powered by modern AI technologies such as multimodal large language models and world models, Embodied AI (EmAI) represents a transformative frontier, offering enhanced autonomy and the ability to interact with the physical world to address these challenges. As an interdisciplinary and rapidly evolving research domain, "EmAI in healthcare" spans diverse fields such as algorithms, robotics, and biomedicine. This complexity underscores the importance of timely reviews and analyses to track advancements, address challenges, and foster cross-disciplinary collaboration. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive overview of the "brain" of EmAI for healthcare, wherein we introduce foundational AI algorithms for perception, actuation, planning, and memory, and focus on presenting the healthcare applications spanning clinical interventions, daily care & companionship, infrastructure support, and biomedical research. Despite its promise, the development of EmAI for healthcare is hindered by critical challenges such as safety concerns, gaps between simulation platforms and real-world applications, the absence of standardized benchmarks, and uneven progress across interdisciplinary domains. We discuss the technical barriers and explore ethical considerations, offering a forward-looking perspective on the future of EmAI in healthcare. A hierarchical framework of intelligent levels for EmAI systems is also introduced to guide further development. By providing systematic insights, this work aims to inspire innovation and practical applications, paving the way for a new era of intelligent, patient-centered healthcare.

Limited availability of multilingual text corpora for training language models often leads to poor performance on downstream tasks due to undertrained representation spaces for languages other than English. This 'under-representation' has motivated recent cross-lingual transfer methods to leverage the English representation space by e.g. mixing English and 'non-English' tokens at the input level or extending model parameters to accommodate new languages. However, these approaches often come at the cost of increased computational complexity. We propose Fusion forLanguage Representations (FLARE) in adapters, a novel method that enhances representation quality and downstream performance for languages other than English while maintaining parameter efficiency. FLARE integrates source and target language representations within low-rank (LoRA) adapters using lightweight linear transformations, maintaining parameter efficiency while improving transfer performance. A series of experiments across representative cross-lingual natural language understanding tasks, including natural language inference, question-answering and sentiment analysis, demonstrate FLARE's effectiveness. FLARE achieves performance improvements of 4.9% for Llama 3.1 and 2.2% for Gemma~2 compared to standard LoRA fine-tuning on question-answering tasks, as measured by the exact match metric.