-- Coherent Ising Machines (CIMs) have recently gained attention as a promising computing model for solving combinatorial optimization problems. In particular, the Chaotic Amplitude Control (CAC) algorithm has demonstrated high solution quality, but its performan ce is highly sensitive to a large number of hyperparameters, making efficient tuning essential. In this study, we present an algorithm portfolio approach for hyperparameter tuning in CIMs employing Chaotic Amplitude Control with momentum (CACm) algorithm. Our method incorporates multiple search strategies, enabling flexible and effective adaptation to the characteristics of the hyperparameter space. Specifically, we propose two representative tuning methods, Method A and Method B. Method A optimizes each hyperparameter sequentially with a fixed total number of trials, while Method B prioritizes hyperparameters based on initial evaluations before applying Method A in order. Performance evaluations were conducted on the Supercomputer "Flow" at Nagoya University, using planted Wishart instances and Time to Solution (TTS) as the evaluation metric. Compared to the baseline performance with best-known hyperparameters, Method A achieved up to 1.47 improvement, and Method B achieved up to 1.65 improvement. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm portfolio approach in enhancing the tuning process for CIMs. A. Background As conventional computing approaches face limitations in solving large-scale combinatorial optimization problems, alternative models--such as quantum annealers and hybrid analog-digital systems--have garnered significant interest [1].

Evaluating the abilities of learners is a fundamental objective in the field of education. In particular, there is an increasing need to assess higher-order abilities such as expressive skills and logical thinking. Constructed-response tests such as short-answer and essay-based questions have become widely used as a method to meet this demand. Although these tests are effective, they require substantial manual grading, making them both labor-intensive and costly. Item response theory (IRT) provides a promising solution by enabling the estimation of ability from incomplete score data, where human raters grade only a subset of answers provided by learners across multiple test items. However, the accuracy of ability estimation declines as the proportion of missing scores increases. Although data augmentation techniques for imputing missing scores have been explored in order to address this limitation, they often struggle with inaccuracy for sparse or heterogeneous data. To overcome these challenges, this study proposes a novel method for imputing missing scores by leveraging automated scoring technologies for accurate IRT-based ability estimation. The proposed method achieves high accuracy in ability estimation while markedly reducing manual grading workload.

During job recruitment, traditional applicant selection methods often lack transparency. Candidates are rarely given sufficient justifications for recruiting decisions, whether they are made manually by human recruiters or through the use of black-box Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). To address this problem, our work introduces a multi-agent AI system that uses Large Language Models (LLMs) to guide job seekers during the recruitment process. Using an iterative user-centric design approach, we first conducted a two-phased exploratory study with four active job seekers to inform the design and development of the system. Subsequently, we conducted an in-depth, qualitative user study with 20 active job seekers through individual one-to-one interviews to evaluate the developed prototype. The results of our evaluation demonstrate that participants perceived our multi-agent recruitment system as significantly more actionable, trustworthy, and fair compared to traditional methods. Our study further helped us uncover in-depth insights into factors contributing to these perceived user experiences. Drawing from these insights, we offer broader design implications for building user-aligned, multi-agent explainable AI systems across diverse domains.

In this work, we employ neural fields, which use neural networks to map a coordinate to the corresponding physical property value at that coordinate, in a test-time learning manner. For a test-time learning method, the weights are learned during the inversion, as compared to traditional approaches which require a network to be trained using a training data set. Results for synthetic examples in seismic tomography and direct current resistivity inversions are shown first. We then perform a singular value decomposition analysis on the Jacobian of the weights of the neural network (SVD analysis) for both cases to explore the effects of neural networks on the recovered model. The results show that the test-time learning approach can eliminate unwanted artifacts in the recovered subsurface physical property model caused by the sensitivity of the survey and physics. Therefore, NFs-Inv improves the inversion results compared to the conventional inversion in some cases such as the recovery of the dip angle or the prediction of the boundaries of the main target. In the SVD analysis, we observe similar patterns in the left-singular vectors as were observed in some diffusion models, trained in a supervised manner, for generative tasks in computer vision. This observation provides evidence that there is an implicit bias, which is inherent in neural network structures, that is useful in supervised learning and test-time learning models. This implicit bias has the potential to be useful for recovering models in geophysical inversions.

Learning-based techniques, especially advanced pre-trained models for code have demonstrated capabilities in code understanding and generation, solving diverse software engineering (SE) tasks. Despite the promising results, current training approaches may not fully optimize model performance, as they typically involve learning from randomly shuffled training data. Recent work shows that Curriculum Learning (CL) can improve performance on code-related tasks through incremental learning based on the difficulty of synthetic code. Yet, the effectiveness of CL with conventional difficulty measures in SE tasks remains largely unexplored. In this study, we explore two conventional code metrics: code length and cyclomatic complexity to determine the difficulty levels. We investigate how the pre-trained code model (CodeT5) learns under CL, through the tasks of code clone detection and code summarization. Our empirical study on the CodeXGLUE benchmark showed contrasting results to prior studies, where the model exhibited signs of catastrophic forgetting and shortcut learning. Surprisingly, model performance saturates after only the first quartile of training, potentially indicating a limit in the model's representation capacity and/or the task's inherent difficulty. Future work should further explore various CL strategies with different code models across a wider range of SE tasks for a more holistic understanding.

The authors provide a new integrated analysis approach (allowing for simultaneous dimensionality reduction and the possibility of de-noising/artifact correction) to assess slow and infra-slow fluctuations of functional MRI data. They evaluate their approach in a very representative sample and show its potential utility by decoding the task that participants were asked to perform, while being scanned, as well as by predicting behavioral scores from the newly derived latent components as well as clinically-relevant outcomes in a clinical sample. In the following sections, I provide specific feedback with respect to originality, quality, clarity and significance. I hope you will find my comments helpful and constructive. Originality To my knowledge the proposed approach is a novel and innovative way of assessing (task-related or task-free) functional connectivity in the brain in a data-driven manner.

This paper investigates a novel nonlinear update rule based on temporal difference (TD) errors in reinforcement learning (RL). The update rule in the standard RL states that the TD error is linearly proportional to the degree of updates, treating all rewards equally without no bias. On the other hand, the recent biological studies revealed that there are nonlinearities in the TD error and the degree of updates, biasing policies optimistic or pessimistic. Such biases in learning due to nonlinearities are expected to be useful and intentionally leftover features in biological learning. Therefore, this research explores a theoretical framework that can leverage the nonlinearity between the degree of the update and TD errors. To this end, we focus on a control as inference framework, since it is known as a generalized formulation encompassing various RL and optimal control methods. In particular, we investigate the uncomputable nonlinear term needed to be approximately excluded in the derivation of the standard RL from control as inference. By analyzing it, Weber-Fechner law (WFL) is found, namely, perception (a.k.a. the degree of updates) in response to stimulus change (a.k.a. TD error) is attenuated by increase in the stimulus intensity (a.k.a. the value function). To numerically reveal the utilities of WFL on RL, we then propose a practical implementation using a reward-punishment framework and modifying the definition of optimality. Analysis of this implementation reveals that two utilities can be expected i) to increase rewards to a certain level early, and ii) to sufficiently suppress punishment. We finally investigate and discuss the expected utilities through simulations and robot experiments. As a result, the proposed RL algorithm with WFL shows the expected utilities that accelerate the reward-maximizing startup and continue to suppress punishments during learning.

Conventional anomaly detection techniques based on reconstruction via denoising diffusion model are widely used due to their ability to identify anomaly locations and shapes with high performance. However, there is a limitation in determining appropriate noise parameters that can degrade anomalies while preserving normal characteristics. Also, due to the volatility of the diffusion model, normal regions can fluctuate considerably during reconstruction, resulting in false detection. In this paper, we propose a method to detect anomalies by analysis of reconstruction trend depending on the degree of degradation, effectively solving the both problems of existing methods. The proposed method is validated on an open dataset for industrial anomaly detection, improving the performance of existing methods on a number of evaluation criteria. With the ease of combination with existing anomaly detection methods, it provides a tradeoff between computational cost and performance, allowing it high application potential in manufacturing industry.