Analog circuit optimization is typically framed as black-box search over arbitrary smooth functions, yet device physics constrains performance mappings to structured families: exponential device laws, rational transfer functions, and regime-dependent dynamics. Off-the-shelf Gaussian-process surrogates impose globally smooth, stationary priors that are misaligned with these regime-switching primitives and can severely misfit highly nonlinear circuits at realistic sample sizes (50--100 evaluations). We demonstrate that pre-trained tabular models encoding these primitives enable reliable optimization without per-circuit engineering. Circuit Prior Network (CPN) combines a tabular foundation model (TabPFN v2) with Direct Expected Improvement (DEI), computing expected improvement exactly under discrete posteriors rather than Gaussian approximations. Across 6 circuits and 25 baselines, structure-matched priors achieve $R^2 \approx 0.99$ in small-sample regimes where GP-Matérn attains only $R^2 = 0.16$ on Bandgap, deliver $1.05$--$3.81\times$ higher FoM with $3.34$--$11.89\times$ fewer iterations, and suggest a shift from hand-crafting models as priors toward systematic physics-informed structure identification. Our code will be made publicly available upon paper acceptance.

This review presents a comprehensive survey and benchmark of pulse shape discrimination (PSD) algorithms for radiation detection, classifying nearly sixty methods into statistical (time-domain, frequency-domain, neural network-based) and prior-knowledge (machine learning, deep learning) paradigms. We implement and evaluate all algorithms on two standardized datasets: an unlabeled set from a 241Am-9Be source and a time-of-flight labeled set from a 238Pu-9Be source, using metrics including Figure of Merit (FOM), F1-score, ROC-AUC, and inter-method correlations. Our analysis reveals that deep learning models, particularly Multi-Layer Perceptrons (MLPs) and hybrid approaches combining statistical features with neural regression, often outperform traditional methods. We discuss architectural suitabilities, the limitations of FOM, alternative evaluation metrics, and performance across energy thresholds. Accompanying this work, we release an open-source toolbox in Python and MATLAB, along with the datasets, to promote reproducibility and advance PSD research.

While data-driven techniques are powerful tools for reduced-order modeling of systems with chaotic dynamics, great potential remains for leveraging known physics (i.e. a full-order model (FOM)) to improve predictive capability. We develop a hybrid reduced order model (ROM), informed by both data and FOM, for evolving spatiotemporal chaotic dynamics on an invariant manifold whose coordinates are found using an autoencoder. This approach projects the vector field of the FOM onto the invariant manifold; then, this physics-derived vector field is either corrected using dynamic data, or used as a Bayesian prior that is updated with data. In both cases, the neural ordinary differential equation approach is used. We consider simulated data from the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky and complex Ginzburg-Landau equations.

Existing model reduction techniques for high-dimensional models of conservative partial differential equations (PDEs) encounter computational bottlenecks when dealing with systems featuring non-polynomial nonlinearities. This work presents a nonlinear model reduction method that employs lifting variable transformations to derive structure-preserving quadratic reduced-order models for conservative PDEs with general nonlinearities. We present an energy-quadratization strategy that defines the auxiliary variable in terms of the nonlinear term in the energy expression to derive an equivalent quadratic lifted system with quadratic system energy. The proposed strategy combined with proper orthogonal decomposition model reduction yields quadratic reduced-order models that conserve the quadratized lifted energy exactly in high dimensions. We demonstrate the proposed model reduction approach on four nonlinear conservative PDEs: the one-dimensional wave equation with exponential nonlinearity, the two-dimensional sine-Gordon equation, the two-dimensional Klein-Gordon equation with parametric dependence, and the two-dimensional Klein-Gordon-Zakharov equations. The numerical results show that the proposed lifting approach is competitive with the state-of-the-art structure-preserving hyper-reduction method in terms of both accuracy and computational efficiency in the online stage while providing significant computational gains in the offline stage.

PearSAN is a machine learning-assisted optimization algorithm applicable to inverse design problems with large design spaces, where traditional optimizers struggle. The algorithm leverages the latent space of a generative model for rapid sampling and employs a Pearson correlated surrogate model to predict the figure of merit of the true design metric. As a showcase example, PearSAN is applied to thermophotovoltaic (TPV) metasurface design by matching the working bands between a thermal radiator and a photovoltaic cell. PearSAN can work with any pretrained generative model with a discretized latent space, making it easy to integrate with VQ-VAEs and binary autoencoders. Its novel Pearson correlational loss can be used as both a latent regularization method, similar to batch and layer normalization, and as a surrogate training loss. We compare both to previous energy matching losses, which are shown to enforce poor regularization and performance, even with upgraded affine parameters. PearSAN achieves a state-of-the-art maximum design efficiency of 97%, and is at least an order of magnitude faster than previous methods, with an improved maximum figure-of-merit gain.

Safety filters leveraging control barrier functions (CBFs) are highly effective for enforcing safe behavior on complex systems. It is often easier to synthesize CBFs for a Reduced order Model (RoM), and track the resulting safe behavior on the Full order Model (FoM) -- yet gaps between the RoM and FoM can result in safety violations. This paper introduces \emph{predictive CBFs} to address this gap by leveraging rollouts of the FoM to define a predictive robustness term added to the RoM CBF condition. Theoretically, we prove that this guarantees safety in a layered control implementation. Practically, we learn the predictive robustness term through massive parallel simulation with domain randomization. We demonstrate in simulation that this yields safe FoM behavior with minimal conservatism, and experimentally realize predictive CBFs on a 3D hopping robot.

Reduced-order models (ROMs) provide lower dimensional representations of complex systems, capturing their salient features while simplifying control design. Building on previous work, this paper presents an overarching framework for the integration of ROMs and control barrier functions, enabling the use of simplified models to construct safety-critical controllers while providing safety guarantees for complex full-order models. To achieve this, we formalize the connection between full and ROMs by defining projection mappings that relate the states and inputs of these models and leverage simulation functions to establish conditions under which safety guarantees may be transferred from a ROM to its corresponding full-order model. The efficacy of our framework is illustrated through simulation results on a drone and hardware demonstrations on ARCHER, a 3D hopping robot.

We analyse the effectiveness of RMSE, PSNR, SSIM and FOM for evaluating edge detection algorithms used for automated coastline detection. Typically, the accuracy of detected coastlines is assessed visually. This can be impractical on a large scale leading to the need for objective evaluation metrics. Hence, we conduct an experiment to find reliable metrics. We apply Canny edge detection to 95 coastline satellite images across 49 testing locations. We vary the Hysteresis thresholds and compare metric values to a visual analysis of detected edges. We found that FOM was the most reliable metric for selecting the best threshold. It could select a better threshold 92.6% of the time and the best threshold 66.3% of the time. This is compared RMSE, PSNR and SSIM which could select the best threshold 6.3%, 6.3% and 11.6% of the time respectively. We provide a reason for these results by reformulating RMSE, PSNR and SSIM in terms of confusion matrix measures. This suggests these metrics not only fail for this experiment but are not useful for evaluating edge detection in general.

We propose a novel constrained Bayesian Optimization (BO) algorithm optimizing the design process of Laterally-Diffused Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (LDMOS) transistors while realizing a target Breakdown Voltage (BV). We convert the constrained BO problem into a conventional BO problem using a Lagrange multiplier. Instead of directly optimizing the traditional Figure-of-Merit (FOM), we set the Lagrangian as the objective function of BO. This adaptive objective function with a changeable Lagrange multiplier can address constrained BO problems which have constraints that require costly evaluations, without the need for additional surrogate models to approximate constraints. Our algorithm enables a device designer to set the target BV in the design space, and obtain a device that satisfies the optimized FOM and the target BV constraint automatically. Utilizing this algorithm, we have also explored the physical limits of the FOM for our devices in 30 - 50 V range within the defined design space.

A data-driven parametric model order reduction (MOR) method using a deep artificial neural network is proposed. The present network, which is the least-squares hierarchical variational autoencoder (LSH-VAE), is capable of performing nonlinear MOR for the parametric interpolation of a nonlinear dynamic system with a significant number of degrees of freedom. LSH-VAE exploits two major changes to the existing networks: a hierarchical deep structure and a hybrid weighted, probabilistic loss function. The enhancements result in a significantly improved accuracy and stability compared against the conventional nonlinear MOR methods, autoencoder, and variational autoencoder. Upon LSH-VAE, a parametric MOR framework is presented based on the spherically linear interpolation of the latent manifold. The present framework is validated and evaluated on three nonlinear and multiphysics dynamic systems. First, the present framework is evaluated on the fluid-structure interaction benchmark problem to assess its efficiency and accuracy. Then, a highly nonlinear aeroelastic phenomenon, limit cycle oscillation, is analyzed. Finally, the present framework is applied to a three-dimensional fluid flow to demonstrate its capability of efficiently analyzing a significantly large number of degrees of freedom. The performance of LSH-VAE is emphasized by comparing its results against that of the widely used nonlinear MOR methods, convolutional autoencoder, and $\beta$-VAE. The present framework exhibits a significantly enhanced accuracy to the conventional methods while still exhibiting a large speed-up factor.