Technology
Multi-Scale Adaptive Network for Single Image Denoising
Multi-scale architectures have shown effectiveness in a variety of tasks thanks to appealing cross-scale complementarity. However, existing architectures treat different scale features equally without considering the scale-specific characteristics, i.e., the within-scale characteristics are ignored in the architecture design. In this paper, we reveal this missing piece for multi-scale architecture design and accordingly propose a novel Multi-Scale Adaptive Network (MSANet) for single image denoising. Specifically, MSANet simultaneously embraces the within-scale characteristics and the cross-scale complementarity thanks to three novel neural blocks, i.e., adaptive feature block (AFeB), adaptive multi-scale block (AMB), and adaptive fusion block (AFuB). In brief, AFeB is designed to adaptively preserve image details and filter noises, which is highly expected for the features with mixed details and noises. AMB could enlarge the receptive field and aggregate the multi-scale information, which meets the need of contextually informative features. AFuB devotes to adaptively sampling and transferring the features from one scale to another scale, which fuses the multi-scale features with varying characteristics from coarse to fine. Extensive experiments on both three real and six synthetic noisy image datasets show the superiority of MSANet compared with 12 methods.
Learning with User-Level Privacy
We propose and analyze algorithms to solve a range of learning tasks under userlevel differential privacy constraints. Rather than guaranteeing only the privacy of individual samples, user-level DP protects a user's entire contribution (m 1 samples), providing more stringent but more realistic protection against information leaks. We show that for high-dimensional mean estimation, empirical risk minimization with smooth losses, stochastic convex optimization, and learning hypothesis classes with finite metric entropy, the privacy cost decreases as O(1/ m) as users provide more samples.
UK departments at odds over energy demands of AI datacentres
Datacentres could require at least 6GW of capacity by 2030 under government plans to expand AI infrastructure. Datacentres could require at least 6GW of capacity by 2030 under government plans to expand AI infrastructure. Sun 26 Apr 2026 03.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 26 Apr 2026 03.01 EDT One vision of the UKâ s future involves a decarbonised economy powered by clean, renewable energy. Another involves making the UK an AI superpower. The government departments responsible for these two visions do not appear to have agreed on their numbers.
No-Regret Bandit Exploration based on Soft Tree Ensemble Model
We propose a novel stochastic bandit algorithm that employs reward estimates using a tree ensemble model. Specifically, our focus is on a soft tree model, a variant of the conventional decision tree that has undergone both practical and theoretical scrutiny in recent years. By deriving several non-trivial properties of soft trees, we extend the existing analytical techniques used for neural bandit algorithms to our soft tree-based algorithm. We demonstrate that our algorithm achieves a smaller cumulative regret compared to the existing ReLU-based neural bandit algorithms. We also show that this advantage comes with a trade-off: the hypothesis space of the soft tree ensemble model is more constrained than that of a ReLU-based neural network.
I own 20 axolotls - people need to know they're not easy to look after
I own 20 axolotls - people need to know they're not easy to look after When Emma Honeyfield's daughter Amber asked for an axolotl for her birthday, Emma never imagined it would lead to a collection of 20. The 37-year-old bought her daughter's first axolotl, Stitch, in September and has since fallen in love with their calming nature. Emma said Amber, eight, had always been difficult to buy for, so when she asked for one for her birthday, she couldn't say no. And the family, from Tredegar, Blaenau Gwent, are far from alone in seeking out the amphibians, which are critically endangered and only found in lakes and wetlands in southern Mexico City . The animal's cute, smiling face and appearance in the hugely popular Minecraft and Roblox games has seen an increase in the number of people keeping them as pets.
Cannes AI film festival raises eyebrows – and questions about future
A still from animated film La Sélection Mécanique, directed by Jules Blachier. A still from animated film La Sélection Mécanique, directed by Jules Blachier. While emerging technology is banned from the Palme d'Or, an upstart movement is gaining investment and attention I n Cannes' darkened screening rooms, the supposed future of cinema flickered into life this week and it was strange. The first edition of the World AI film festival (WAIFF) showcased visions of men with fish scales erupting from their necks and seaweed from their mouths, a heroine with a heart beating outside her body and so many massed armies of AI-generated tanned men sweeping across battlefields that David Lean would have blushed. Last week the Cannes film festival, entering its 76th year, banned the emerging technology from its Palme d'Or competition, insisting "AI imitates very well but it will never feel deep emotions".