The pre-trained text-to-image diffusion models have been increasingly employed to tackle the real-world image super-resolution (Real-ISR) problem due to their powerful generative image priors. Most of the existing methods start from random noise to reconstruct the high-quality (HQ) image under the guidance of the given low-quality (LQ) image. While promising results have been achieved, such Real-ISR methods require multiple diffusion steps to reproduce the HQ image, increasing the computational cost. Meanwhile, the random noise introduces uncertainty in the output, which is unfriendly to image restoration tasks. To address these issues, we propose a one-step effective diffusion network, namely OSEDiff, for the Real-ISR problem.

The brain prepares for learning even before interacting with the environment, by refining and optimizing its structures through spontaneous neural activity that resembles random noise. However, the mechanism of such a process has yet to be understood, and it is unclear whether this process can benefit the algorithm of machine learning. Here, we study this issue using a neural network with a feedback alignment algorithm, demonstrating that pretraining neural networks with random noise increases the learning efficiency as well as generalization abilities without weight transport. First, we found that random noise training modifies forward weights to match backward synaptic feedback, which is necessary for teaching errors by feedback alignment. As a result, a network with pre-aligned weights learns notably faster and reaches higher accuracy than a network without random noise training, even comparable to the backpropagation algorithm.

Thebrain prepares forlearning evenbefore interacting withtheenvironment, by refining and optimizing its structures through spontaneous neural activity that resembles random noise. However,the mechanism of such aprocess has yet to be understood, and it is unclear whether this process can benefit the algorithm of machine learning.

This trend is consistent with similar conclusions in the prior DDPM work [1]. These biased problems should be carefully solved for the deployment of real applications.

To achieve this goal, we provide a generative diffusion-based framework called MomentDiff, which simulates a typical human retrieval process from random browsing to gradual localization. Specifically, we first diffuse the real span to random noise, and learn to denoise the random noise to the original span with the guidance of similarity between text and video.

This process enables the value (feature maps) to be rearranged (through a weighted sum) to align with the form of the query, thereby reflecting their strong correspondence. The input noise is removed because its stochasticity slows down the training. Given the need for balancing between high correspondence and image quality, we empirically set the weights of our loss terms. To demonstrate the influence of the additional losses introduced in our method, we provide both quantitative and qualitative ablations in Figure S2 and S3, respectively. Nonetheless, caution is warranted when overly increasing the number of clusters.

Neural Information Processing Systems http://nips.cc/

In recent years, explaining decisions made by complex machine learning models has become essential in high-stakes domains such as energy systems, healthcare, finance, and autonomous systems. However, the reliability of these explanations, namely, whether they remain stable and consistent under realistic, non-adversarial changes, remains largely unmeasured. Widely used methods such as SHAP and Integrated Gradients (IG) are well-motivated by axiomatic notions of attribution, yet their explanations can vary substantially even under system-level conditions, including small input perturbations, correlated representations, and minor model updates. Such variability undermines explanation reliability, as reliable explanations should remain consistent across equivalent input representations and small, performance-preserving model changes. We introduce the Explanation Reliability Index (ERI), a family of metrics that quantifies explanation stability under four reliability axioms: robustness to small input perturbations, consistency under feature redundancy, smoothness across model evolution, and resilience to mild distributional shifts. For each axiom, we derive formal guarantees, including Lipschitz-type bounds and temporal stability results. We further propose ERI-T, a dedicated measure of temporal reliability for sequential models, and introduce ERI-Bench, a benchmark designed to systematically stress-test explanation reliability across synthetic and real-world datasets. Experimental results reveal widespread reliability failures in popular explanation methods, showing that explanations can be unstable under realistic deployment conditions. By exposing and quantifying these instabilities, ERI enables principled assessment of explanation reliability and supports more trustworthy explainable AI (XAI) systems.