This study investigates whether large language models (LLMs) mirror human neurocognition during abstract reasoning. We compared the performance and neural representations of human participants with those of eight open-source LLMs on an abstract-pattern-completion task. We leveraged pattern type differences in task performance and in fixation-related potentials (FRPs) as recorded by electroencephalography (EEG) during the task. Our findings indicate that only the largest tested LLMs (~70 billion parameters) achieve human-comparable accuracy, with Qwen-2.5-72B and DeepSeek-R1-70B also showing similarities with the human pattern-specific difficulty profile. Critically, every LLM tested forms representations that distinctly cluster the abstract pattern categories within their intermediate layers, although the strength of this clustering scales with their performance on the task. Moderate positive correlations were observed between the representational geometries of task-optimal LLM layers and human frontal FRPs. These results consistently diverged from comparisons with other EEG measures (response-locked ERPs and resting EEG), suggesting a potential shared representational space for abstract patterns. This indicates that LLMs might mirror human brain mechanisms in abstract reasoning, offering preliminary evidence of shared principles between biological and artificial intelligence.

Conformance checking techniques detect undesired process behavior by comparing process executions that are recorded in event logs to desired behavior that is captured in a dedicated process model. If such models are not available, conformance checking techniques are not applicable, but organizations might still be interested in detecting undesired behavior in their processes. To enable this, existing approaches use Large Language Models (LLMs), assuming that they can learn to distinguish desired from undesired behavior through fine-tuning. However, fine-tuning is highly resource-intensive and the fine-tuned LLMs often do not generalize well. To address these limitations, we propose an approach that requires neither a dedicated process model nor resource-intensive fine-tuning to detect undesired process behavior. Instead, we use Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to provide an LLM with direct access to a knowledge base that contains both desired and undesired process behavior from other processes, assuming that the LLM can transfer this knowledge to the process at hand. Our evaluation shows that our approach outperforms fine-tuned LLMs in detecting undesired behavior, demonstrating that RAG is a viable alternative to resource-intensive fine-tuning, particularly when enriched with relevant context from the event log, such as frequent traces and activities.

Machine learning (ML), including deep learning, has recently gained tremendous popularity in a wide range of applications. However, like traditional software, ML applications are not immune to the bugs that result from programming errors. Explicit programming errors usually manifest through error messages and stack traces. These stack traces describe the chain of function calls that lead to an anomalous situation, or exception. Indeed, these exceptions may cross the entire software stack (including applications and libraries). Thus, studying the patterns in stack traces can help practitioners and researchers understand the causes of exceptions in ML applications and the challenges faced by ML developers. To that end, we mine Stack Overflow (SO) and study 11,449 stack traces related to seven popular Python ML libraries. First, we observe that ML questions that contain stack traces gain more popularity than questions without stack traces; however, they are less likely to get accepted answers. Second, we observe that recurrent patterns exists in ML stack traces, even across different ML libraries, with a small portion of patterns covering many stack traces. Third, we derive five high-level categories and 25 low-level types from the stack trace patterns: most patterns are related to python basic syntax, model training, parallelization, data transformation, and subprocess invocation. Furthermore, the patterns related to subprocess invocation, external module execution, and remote API call are among the least likely to get accepted answers on SO. Our findings provide insights for researchers, ML library providers, and ML application developers to improve the quality of ML libraries and their applications.

With the development of Natural Language Processing (NLP), more and more systems want to adopt NLP in User Interface Module to process user input, in order to communicate with user in a natural way. However, this raises a speed problem. That is, if NLP module can not process sentences in durable time delay, users will never use the system. As a result, systems which are strict with processing time, such as dialogue systems, web search systems, automatic customer service systems, especially real-time systems, have to abandon NLP module in order to get a faster system response. This paper aims to solve the speed problem. In this paper, at first, the construction of a syntactic parser which is based on corpus machine learning and statistics model is introduced, and then a speed problem analysis is performed on the parser and its algorithms. Based on the analysis, two accelerating methods, Compressed POS Set and Syntactic Patterns Pruning, are proposed, which can effectively improve the time efficiency of parsing in NLP module. To evaluate different parameters in the accelerating algorithms, two new factors, PT and RT, are introduced and explained in detail. Experiments are also completed to prove and test these methods, which will surely contribute to the application of NLP.

Many sequential prediction tasks involve locating instances of patterns in sequences. Generative probabilistic language models, such as hidden Markov models (HMMs), have been successfully applied to many of these tasks. A limitation of these models however, is that they cannot naturally handle cases in which pattern instances overlap in arbitrary ways. We present an alternative approach, based on conditional Markov networks, that can naturally represent arbitrarily overlapping elements. We show how to efficiently train and perform inference with these models. Experimental results from a genomics domain show that our models are more accurate at locating instances of overlapping patterns than are baseline models based on HMMs.

Many sequential prediction tasks involve locating instances of patterns in sequences. Generative probabilistic language models, such as hidden Markov models (HMMs), have been successfully applied to many of these tasks. A limitation of these models however, is that they cannot naturally handle cases in which pattern instances overlap in arbitrary ways. We present an alternative approach, based on conditional Markov networks, that can naturally represent arbitrarily overlapping elements. We show how to efficiently train and perform inference with these models. Experimental results from a genomics domain show that our models are more accurate at locating instances of overlapping patterns than are baseline models based on HMMs.

Many sequential prediction tasks involve locating instances of patterns insequences. Generative probabilistic language models, such as hidden Markov models (HMMs), have been successfully applied to many of these tasks. A limitation of these models however, is that they cannot naturally handle cases in which pattern instances overlap in arbitrary ways. We present an alternative approach, based on conditional Markov networks, that can naturally represent arbitrarilyoverlapping elements. We show how to efficiently train and perform inference with these models. Experimental results froma genomics domain show that our models are more accurate at locating instances of overlapping patterns than are baseline models based on HMMs.