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01.
arXiv (CS.CL) 2026-06-15

Detecting undisclosed LLM-generated content in parliamentary texts

In this paper, we evaluate the extent of undisclosed LLM-generated content in texts from the parliaments of the United Kingdom and Sweden. In many areas, such as in journalism or in academic writing, there are often requirements to clearly disclose whether AI tools, such as LLMs, have been used. In the case of parliamentary texts, the guidelines on disclosure of AI use are more vague. However, in order to maintain transparency and retain public trust, it is generally recommended that parliamentarians should state whether or not they have used AI when writing texts, such as parliamentary motions. Here, we train an interpretable (glass-box) text classifier using pre-LLM parliamentary texts and LLM-generated versions of such texts. We then apply the classifier to a test set containing recent parliamentary texts, finding a steady increase in undisclosed LLM use, in both parliaments, from 2022 onwards.

02.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-17

From Reasoning Traces to Reusable Modules: Understanding Compositional Generalization in Language Model Reasoning

arXiv:2606.18089v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Post-training pipelines that combine supervised fine-tuning (SFT) with reinforcement learning (RL) have emerged as the key recipe for transforming large language models (LLMs) into robust reasoners. We argue that this combined success is driven by compositional generalization, which we formalize through a hierarchical latent selection model. In this framework, reasoning traces are generated by a cascade of discrete latent selection variables corresponding to reusable atomic modules, including both skills (local operations) and routing mechanisms (how intermediate information is selected, reused, and composed). Within this model, we theoretically show that SFT and RL play asymmetric, complementary roles: SFT supplies the raw module materials in compositional traces, and RL decomposes those traces to identify the latent atomic modules and enable compositional generalization. We design controlled experiments to validate this theory. Our results demonstrate that RL can extract atomic modules from compound traces supplied by SFT and recombine them to solve new configurations. Moreover, we find that training on compound traces yields stronger generalization than training on isolated atomic modules. Finally, we investigate the relationship between SFT and RL data and identify an effective protocol in which SFT ensures coverage of all atomic modules through compositional traces, while RL focuses on novel compositions outside the SFT support to drive exploration.

03.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-24

Exceptional by Design: Long-Range Hopping as a Knob for Exceptional Point Control

arXiv:2606.24705v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Exceptional points are degeneracies unique to non-Hermitian systems, where eigenvalues and eigenvectors coalesce, rendering the Hamiltonian defective. We investigate the exceptional-point structure and topological properties of a generalized non-Hermitian Rice-Mele model with balanced gain and loss, as well as next-nearest-neighbor hopping. The system hosts only second-order exceptional points under both periodic and open boundary conditions. Under periodic boundary conditions, the exceptional points in parameter space lie on lines and ellipses that are independent of the next-nearest-neighbor hopping, since the latter enters the bulk Hamiltonian only as an identity contribution. Under open boundary conditions, this independence is broken: the next-nearest-neighbor hopping not only shifts the energy of existing exceptional points but also generates new ones, with a specific condition signaling a topological gap closing observed only in the open-boundary spectrum. At special parameter points, multiple simultaneous second-order exceptional points yield degenerate configurations whose degeneracy grows with system size. Exceptional point locations are identified numerically via the condition number of the eigenvector matrix and confirmed by Jordan decomposition. The topological phase diagram, computed via a winding number framework for non-Hermitian systems without symmetry protection, reveals sectors with zero, one, and two edge states; the bulk-boundary correspondence is confirmed, and the non-Hermitian skin effect is absent.

04.
bioRxiv (Bioinfo) 2026-06-11

OMIO: A policy-driven Python library for reproducible microscopy image I/O

Modern fluorescence and multiphoton microscopy workflows operate within a heterogeneous ecosystem of file formats, partially overlapping metadata standards, and reader-specific conventions. In practice, this frequently leads to silent axis misinterpretations, loss or corruption of physical voxel size information, and laboratory-specific glue code that is fragile, poorly documented, and difficult to reproduce. OMIO, short for Open Microscopy Image I/O, addresses these issues by providing a lightweight, policy-driven image I/O layer for Python that enforces a canonical, OME-compatible data representation at the API boundary. The central contribution of OMIO is the explicit separation of low-level format access from semantic normalization. Existing reader libraries are used as interchangeable backends for extracting pixel data and available metadata, while OMIO enforces axis conventions, metadata interpretation, and fallback decisions in a centralized and auditable policy layer. This design allows heterogeneous microscopy inputs to be converted into a stable representation without propagating backend-specific assumptions into downstream analysis code. The core design principles of OMIO include canonical axis semantics (TZCYX), robust metadata normalization with explicit and auditable fallbacks, memory-aware operation via optional Zarr-based backends, and workflow-level semantics that extend beyond individual files to folder stacks and BIDS-like project structures. This architecture allows OMIO to orchestrate existing reader libraries into a coherent and reproducible I/O pipeline without replacing or duplicating their functionality. OMIO is implemented as an open-source and community-oriented system in which support for additional file formats and metadata conventions can be added incrementally through modular reader backends. By encouraging the contribution of example datasets, backend extensions, and feature requests, OMIO is designed to evolve alongside emerging acquisition systems while preserving strict semantic guarantees at the interface level. The resulting standardized OME-TIFF outputs are immediately suitable for downstream quantitative analysis and interactive inspection in scientific Python workflows, including workflows based on ImageJ and Napari.

05.
medRxiv (Medicine) 2026-06-23

Antibodies against influenza A/H1N1pdm2009 and B/Victoria strains but not A/H3N2 are increased in recent onset type 1 narcolepsy versus matched controls

Study Objectives: Onsets of Narcolepsy type-1 (NT1) increased following A/H1N1 vaccination with PandemrixTM in Europe and with A/H1N1pdm2009 infections in China and other countries. To test if other strains could trigger narcolepsy, we measured strain-specific antibodies in patients with recent onset NT1 compared to controls. Methods: Antibodies against hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) were tested in 62 patients with very recent onset (onset and blood collection following a single flu season, mean +/- SEM: 0.44 +/- 0.06 years since onset) and 100 controls matched by age, sex, season and year of collection (2000-2025). Results were next extended to 181 recent onset patients (mean +/- SEM: 1.00 +/- 0.05 years) versus 260 controls, matched by sex, season and year, but having a slightly higher mean age. HA inhibition (HAI) and NA inhibition (NAI) assays were conducted using flu strains known to circulate during the corresponding flu seasons. HAI results are shown as % positive (titers >= 40) and NAI results as geometric mean titers. Odds ratio (OR) and coefficient were used to compare antibody titers in NT1 versus controls. The contribution of each assay to prediction was finally quantified in the larger sample set using Shapley decomposition. Results: NT1 patients had increased anti-HA and anti-NA antibodies against A/H1N1pdm2009 (anti-HA OR = 3.86, anti-NA coefficient = 0.35) and B/Victoria (anti-HA OR =1.90, anti-NA coefficient = 0.22), but not A/H1N1pre2009, A/H3N2, or B/Yamagata, independent of HLA-DQB1*06:02 status, age, sex, and flu season. Correlations between anti-HA and anti-NA antibodies titers were weak to moderate but significant (r2=-0.10 to 0.34). Multivariable model outperformed age-only baseline (McFadden R2 = 0.19 vs. 0.03; AUC = 0.79 vs. 0.64; likelihood-ratio test X2 = 51, p

06.
arXiv (CS.CL) 2026-06-24

Societal Alignment Frameworks Can Improve LLM Alignment

Recent progress in large language models (LLMs) has focused on producing responses that meet human expectations and align with shared values - a process coined alignment. However, aligning LLMs remains challenging due to the inherent disconnect between the complexity of human values and the narrow nature of the technological approaches designed to address them. Current alignment methods often lead to misspecified objectives, reflecting the broader issue of incomplete contracts, the impracticality of specifying a contract between a model developer, and the model that accounts for every scenario in LLM alignment. In this paper, we argue that improving LLM alignment requires incorporating insights from societal alignment frameworks, including social, economic, and contractual alignment, and discuss potential solutions drawn from these domains. Given the role of uncertainty within societal alignment frameworks, we then investigate how it manifests in LLM alignment. We end our discussion by offering an alternative view on LLM alignment, framing the underspecified nature of its objectives as an opportunity rather than perfect their specification. Beyond technical improvements in LLM alignment, we discuss the need for participatory alignment interface designs.

07.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-24

Accuracy and Satisfaction in Multi-Turn LLM Dialogues for NFR Assessment

arXiv:2606.24834v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: LLM-based dialogue assistants have become mainstream tools for software developers, yet current evaluation benchmarks focus exclusively on functional correctness. This leaves a critical gap in assessing the quality and accuracy of these conversations when handling Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs), which are inherently vague, context-dependent, and involve many parts of a program. Evaluating how well these systems support collaborative reasoning about NFRs requires methods that go beyond single-turn accuracy to capture both the correctness of the system's outputs and the quality of the multi-turn interaction. In this paper, we investigate the accuracy and quality of multi-turn conversations between developers and an LLM-based agent in the domain of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulatory compliance. We hired 49 programmers to interact with GitHub Copilot to assess 148 HIPAA-derived NFRs against the iTrust codebase, a system designed to comply with HIPAA regulations, across three dimensions: requirement satisfaction level, reasoning, and code localization. We find that developers tend to agree with LLM assessments, but accuracy against expert ground truth is low. We model user satisfaction and find that longer system responses and more information-providing turns negatively affect user satisfaction, whereas proactive interactions positively affect it. Our findings provide insights for designing LLM-based dialogue systems that support NFR assessment.

08.
medRxiv (Medicine) 2026-06-17

Perceptions of aging well among older adults with heart failure: insights from a qualitative study

Background: Heart failure (HF) is a prevalent and often debilitating cardiovascular condition among older adults, frequently accompanied by multimorbidity, functional limitations, and the need to age in place. Traditional models of successful aging emphasize disease absence and preserved function, yet most individuals with HF live with ongoing symptoms and chronic health challenges. How older adults with HF define aging well, particularly across different socioeconomic contexts, remains underexplored. Objectives: To explore how older adults with HF conceptualize aging well and to identify perceived facilitators and barriers across more and less resourced New York City neighborhoods. Methods: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 adults diagnosed with HF residing in Manhattan and Brooklyn neighborhoods classified by 2019 United States Census data. Interviews were guided by Rowe and Kahn's model. Transcripts were analyzed using an inductive-deductive thematic approach and interpreted in alignment with the Healthy People 2030 framework. Results: Participants had a mean age of 69 years; 50% identified as Black and 50% were women. Despite functional limitations, 65% reported aging well. Five themes emerged: maintaining physical function, maintaining cognitive function, sustaining social relationships, avoiding pain, and promoting overall well-being. Avoiding pain and promoting well-being extended beyond traditional models. Neighborhood context shaped priorities, with financial stability emphasized in more affluent areas and social cohesion prioritized in less affluent communities. Conclusions: Older adults with HF frequently perceive themselves as aging well despite chronic illness, reframing successful aging beyond disease avoidance. These findings support a patient-centered, place-informed model of aging well with implications for healthcare delivery and policy.

09.
arXiv (CS.CV) 2026-06-17

NTIRE 2024 Challenge on Image Super-Resolution (x4): Methods and Results

This paper reviews the NTIRE 2024 challenge on image super-resolution ($\times$4), highlighting the solutions proposed and the outcomes obtained. The challenge involves generating corresponding high-resolution (HR) images, magnified by a factor of four, from low-resolution (LR) inputs using prior information. The LR images originate from bicubic downsampling degradation. The aim of the challenge is to obtain designs/solutions with the most advanced SR performance, with no constraints on computational resources (e.g., model size and FLOPs) or training data. The track of this challenge assesses performance with the PSNR metric on the DIV2K testing dataset. The competition attracted 199 registrants, with 20 teams submitting valid entries. This collective endeavour not only pushes the boundaries of performance in single-image SR but also offers a comprehensive overview of current trends in this field.

10.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-11

Risk Under Pressure: Compute-Aware Evaluation of Adversarial Robustness in Language Models

arXiv:2606.11409v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Adversarial robustness evaluations of large language models (LLMs) typically report attack success rate (ASR) under fixed query budgets, implicitly treating all attacks as equally costly. In practice, the computational expense of different attack strategies can vary by orders of magnitude. Consequently, ASR at a fixed budget can obscure the true effort required to jailbreak a model, thereby making it hard to determine whether an attack's cost justifies its payoff to the attacker. We propose a compute-aware evaluation framework based on computational pressure, measured in cumulative floating-point operations (FLOPs), as a proxy for adversarial effort. We introduce risk-compute curves, which map compute budgets to attack risk, and derive two metrics that summarize the average pressure required for a given attack to succeed. Across ten models spanning three families and four different stages in language model training and alignment, evaluated with three attack strategies (gradient-based, iterative refinement, and template-based) on two jailbreak robustness benchmarks, we find: (1) alignment training has non-monotonic effects on compute-space robustness; (2) scaling model size reduces gradient-based attack effectiveness but has limited impact on cheaper template-based attacks; (3) gradient-based attacks optimized on a surrogate model can transfer to a separate target model, providing a way to reduce attacker costs; (4) compute cost varies by up to ${\approx}5{\times}$ across harm categories within a single model; and (5) safety-aligned RL increases aggregate cost while leaving some categories disproportionately accessible. We release our framework to enable compute-aware risk assessment and evaluation.

11.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-17

Distributed General-Purpose Agent Networks: Architecture, Key Mechanisms, and Prototypes

arXiv:2606.17368v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large language models have accelerated the transition from passive conversational assistants to autonomous agents that can understand goals, plan actions, invoke tools, and execute multi-step tasks. Yet the capability of a single agent remains constrained by its local data, tool permissions, runtime environment, and governance boundary. This paper studies distributed general-purpose agent networks: open peer-to-peer networks in which heterogeneous agents deployed on personal devices, edge nodes, or autonomous computing environments can discover one another, establish trust, negotiate cooperation rules, and execute open-ended tasks. We argue that such networks cannot be obtained by simply combining existing peer-to-peer overlays with conventional multi-agent systems. Unlike traditional P2P networks, agent networks must propagate semantic declarations about intentions, capabilities, states, and cooperation constraints. We therefore propose a layered architecture centered on a protocol adaptation layer that connects upper-level task semantics with lower-level network operations. Based on this architecture, the paper identifies three core mechanism problems: semantic announcement propagation for collaborator discovery, verifiable identity and multi-topic reputation for cooperation governance, and semantic-gradient mechanism design for open task execution. For each problem, we present a technical route, including bodyless gossip with sequential logs, BAID-based identity binding with MG-EigenTrust reputation, and a Stackelberg-style mechanism-generation loop driven by semantic attribution feedback. We further report prototype overhead results for BAID-style tiered verification and mechanism-level simulations of MG-EigenTrust under cross-topic disguise-collusion attacks. The resulting framework provides a system-level foundation for open, trustworthy, and scalable agent collaboration.

12.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-12

Standardized Methods and Recommendations for Green Federated Learning

arXiv:2602.00343v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Federated learning (FL) enables collaborative model training over privacy-sensitive, distributed data, but its environmental impact is difficult to compare across studies due to inconsistent measurement boundaries and heterogeneous reporting. We present a practical carbon-accounting methodology for FL CO2e tracking using NVIDIA NVFlare and CodeCarbon for explicit, phase-aware tasks (initialization, per-round training, evaluation, and idle/coordination). To capture non-compute effects, we additionally estimate communication emissions from transmitted model-update sizes under a network-configurable energy model. We validate the proposed approach on two representative workloads: CIFAR-10 image classification and retinal optic disk segmentation. In CIFAR-10, controlled client-efficiency scenarios show that system-level slowdowns and coordination effects can contribute meaningfully to carbon footprint under an otherwise fixed FL protocol, increasing total CO2e by 8.34x (medium) and 21.73x (low) relative to the high-efficiency baseline. In retinal segmentation, swapping GPU tiers (H100 vs.\ V100) yields a consistent 1.7x runtime gap (290 vs. 503 minutes) while producing non-uniform changes in total energy and CO2e across sites, underscoring the need for per-site and per-round reporting. Overall, our results support a standardized carbon accounting method that acts as a prerequisite for reproducible 'green' FL evaluation. Our code is available at https://github.com/Pediatric-Accelerated-Intelligence-Lab/carbon_footprint.

13.
arXiv (CS.CL) 2026-06-15

AgentSpec: Understanding Embodied Agent Scaffolds Through Controlled Composition

LLM agents are increasingly built not as single model calls, but as scaffolded systems that combine reasoning, memory, reflection, action execution, and learning. While such scaffolds often improve performance, they are often embedded in tightly coupled pipelines, making it difficult to isolate component contributions, compare alternative designs, or understand how module interactions shape agent behavior. We introduce AgentSpec, a modular specification framework that represents embodied agents as typed compositions of reusable policy components with standardized interfaces. AgentSpec standardizes the interfaces among perception, memory, reasoning, reflection, action, and optional learning, enabling components to be swapped and recombined under controlled conditions. We instantiate this framework across DeliveryBench, ALFRED, MiniGrid, and RoboTHOR, and analyze reasoning, memory, reflection, and reinforcement-learning modules across model backbones. Our results show that agent performance is governed by scaffold compatibility and interaction effects rather than isolated module strength. In particular, structured multi-granularity memory improves long-horizon state tracking, reasoning and memory interact non-uniformly across environments, reflection trades off correction and cost, and RL-trained policies compose best when optimized with deployment-time scaffold structure. AgentSpec provides a controlled foundation for studying, comparing, and designing composable LLM agents. Our code, baselines and interactive playground are publicly available at https://agentspec-embodied.github.io.

14.
arXiv (CS.CL) 2026-06-16

Ling and Ring 2.6 Technical Report: Efficient and Instant Agentic Intelligence at Trillion-Parameter Scale

Efficient and scalable agentic intelligence requires models that can deliver both low-latency responses and strong reasoning capabilities while remaining practical to train, serve, and deploy. In this report, we present Ling-2.6 and Ring-2.6, a family of models designed to address this challenge at scale. Ling-2.6 is optimized for instant response generation and high capability per output token, whereas Ring-2.6 is tailored for deeper reasoning and more advanced agentic workflows. Instead of training from scratch, we upgrade the Ling-2.0 base model through architectural migration pre-training and large-scale post-training. This upgrade is guided by a unified co-design of model architecture, optimization objectives, serving systems, and agent training environments, enabling improvements in both model capability and deployment efficiency. At the architectural level, we introduce a hybrid linear attention design that integrates Lightning Attention with MLA, improving the efficiency of long-context training and decoding. To further enhance token efficiency, we optimize capability per output token through Evolutionary Chain-of-Thought, Linguistic Unit Policy Optimization, bidirectional preference alignment, and shortest-correct-response distillation. For agentic capabilities, we propose KPop, a reinforcement learning framework designed to support stable training of Ring-2.6-1T on large-scale environment-grounded data. KPop improves training efficiency through asynchronous scheduling across coding, search, tool use, and workflow execution, enabling scalable learning from complex agent-environment interactions. Together, Ling-2.6 and Ring-2.6 provide a practical pathway toward efficient, scalable, and open agentic systems. We open-source all checkpoints in the 2.6 family to support further research and development in practical agentic intelligence.

15.
arXiv (CS.CV) 2026-06-12

Stereo Vision-Based Fall Prediction and Detection using Human Pose Estimation on the AMD Kria K26 SOM

Background and Objective: Falls among elderly people can cause serious injury and reduce quality of life. Timely prediction and detection are essential to prevent harm and support well-being. We propose a portable, low-power, battery-operated, vision-based fall prediction and detection system using HPE on an AMD Kria K26 System-on-Module (SOM). The objective is a non-intrusive, privacy-preserving system for real-time fall detection. Methods: The system uses an Intel RealSense D455 range-sensing camera connected to the K26 SOM by USB. It captures synchronized RGB and depth frames, 640 x 480 x 3 and 640 x 480 pixels, at 60 FPS. The SOM runs a three-stage pipeline with quantized YOLOX, Anchor-to-Joint (A2J), and fall-detection models. YOLOX identifies human bounding boxes from RGB frames, then discards the RGB frames to preserve privacy. A2J uses depth frames to estimate 15 joint keypoints per person. A CNN uses selected joint coordinates (x, y, z) to classify fall activity. YOLOX was trained on CrowdHuman; A2J on ITOP, MP-3DHP, UR Fall Detection, and a custom SDSU PSG dataset; and the CNN on UR Fall Detection and SDSU PSG. The design used a single-core DPU with a serial pipeline and a dual-core DPU running YOLOX and A2J with multiple threads. Results: Quantized accuracy was evaluated using IoU >= 50% for YOLOX, mAP with a 10-cm rule for A2J, and classification accuracy, (TP + TN)/(TP + TN + FP + FN), for the CNN. Accuracies were 74%, 84.13%, and 75.85%. Throughput improved from 2.5 FPS for the single-threaded pipeline to 4.5 FPS for the multi-threaded version. Conclusion: Results demonstrate the feasibility of privacy-preserving fall detection on an AMD Kria K26 edge device. On-device HPE and fall classification runs without cloud dependency, supporting elderly monitoring and assistive healthcare. Future work will improve model accuracy and speed.

16.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-25

Evaluating AGENTS.md: Are Repository-Level Context Files Helpful for Coding Agents?

arXiv:2602.11988v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: A widespread practice in software development is to tailor coding agents to repositories using context files, such as AGENTS.md. Although this practice is strongly encouraged by agent developers, there is currently no rigorous investigation into whether such context files are actually effective for real-world tasks. In this work, we study this question and evaluate coding agents' task completion performance in two complementary settings: established SWE-bench tasks from popular repositories, with LLM-generated context files, and a novel collection of issues from repositories containing developer-committed context files. Surprisingly, we find that providing context files does not generally improve task success rates, while increasing inference cost by over 20% on average. This observation holds across different LLMs, coding agents, and for both LLM-generated and developer-committed context files. Specifically, we find that while instructions in the context files are well followed by coding agents, repository overviews, although popular and recommended by model providers, are not helpful. We conclude that while context files are useful for specifying non-standard coding practices, any attempts to improve performance should be rigorously evaluated before deployment.

17.
arXiv (CS.CL) 2026-06-16

Building Customer Support AI Agents at 100M-User Scale: An Evaluation-Driven Framework

The rapid rise in LLM capabilities has made AI agents increasingly viable across a broad range of tasks. Among the most promising applications is building production-ready customer-facing agents, a challenge that demands coordinated excellence in evaluation methodology, context engineering, training, and online measurement. Yet these critical pillars are typically developed in isolation, creating blind spots that only surface after deployment. In this paper, we present a unified framework that bridges offline development with online impact for customer support AI agents at Nubank, a company with 100M+ users. Our approach integrates several key components: (1) structured context engineering tailored to customer support agents, (2) systematic human-in-the-loop prompt iteration, (3) rigorous LLM judge evaluation with measured inter-rater agreement and GEPA optimization for consistency, and (4) ideation-to-production validation. A central insight is that evaluation-pipeline quality directly determines iteration velocity. We present results from five production deployments spanning distinct domains: card delivery, debt management, credit-limit support, card management, and product explanation. These deployments deliver consistent customer-satisfaction gains while substantially accelerating iteration. In our card-delivery deployment, large-scale A/B testing yields a 37 percentage-point improvement in AI transactional Net Promoter Score and a 29 percentage-point gain in self-service rate over prior agent variants, alongside a strong correlation between offline simulation metrics and online outcomes, demonstrating that eval-driven development reliably predicts production impact. On most use cases, AI satisfaction reaches within a few percentage points of expert human agents.

18.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-19

Effective Faraday interaction between light and Helium-3 nuclear spins in a multi-pass cell

arXiv:2606.20328v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Helium-3 nuclear spins form an exceptionally stable quantum system with extremely long coherence time, offering exciting opportunities for quantum technologies. In particular, nuclear spin-squeezed states promise enhanced precision for sensing tasks and tests of new physics. A central challenge for all these applications is the realization of a controllable light-nuclear spin interface. Here we experimentally demonstrate such an interface by exploiting metastability-exchange collisions in a low-pressure helium-3 gas cell at room temperature. A radio-frequency discharge produces a small population of metastable atoms that both enables efficient optical pumping and mediates an effective Faraday interaction between the collective nuclear spin and an optical probe. We quantitatively characterize the strength of this interaction as a function of the nuclear polarization, applied magnetic field, and probe-beam parameters. Moreover, we show that using a multi-pass cell enhances this interaction by effectively increasing the optical depth. Extrapolating to a tenfold increase of the probe power used in the present experiment, we project a measurement-induced squeezing rate of 0.52 s$^{-1}$. Our results provide a practical pathway for optical access to helium-3 nuclear spins and open prospects for generating long-lived, macroscopic nuclear spin-squeezed states for quantum metrology.

19.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-12

Exploring How Agent Voice Accents Shape Human-AI Collaboration in K-12 Group Learning

arXiv:2606.12805v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Collaboration is widely recognized as a cornerstone of 21st-century education, yet teachers still encounter persistent challenges in fostering productive peer interaction. LLM conversational peer agents introduce new possibilities for mediating in-person group work, raising questions about how persona design, particularly their voice characteristics, shapes learners' perceptions, trust, and interactional dynamics. While prior work has examined agent accent effects in one-to-one settings, little is known about how these effects manifest in groups. We conducted a between-subjects mixed-methods study with 33 teachers examining how a GenAI voice agent with different accents (British, Indian, and African American) influenced collaboration and agent perception. Across surveys, group interaction analyses, and artifacts, we find that accent shaped participants' mental models and the roles the agent assumed in group interaction. The British-accented agent was largely treated as a tool and engaged in detached, utility-based ways, whereas Indian- and African American-accented agents were more readily anthropomorphized and integrated as peers. These role expectations influenced trust, engagement, and reliance over time. This work advances understanding of how GenAI's sociolinguistic design features shape group dynamics in CSCL, with implications for designing culturally inclusive AI partners in group learning.

20.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-19

ENPIRE: Agentic Robot Policy Self-Improvement in the Real World

arXiv:2606.19980v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Achieving dexterous robotic manipulation in the real world heavily relies on human supervision and algorithm engineering, which becomes a central bottleneck in the pursuit of general physical intelligence. Although emerging coding agents can generate code to automate algorithm search, their successes remain largely confined in digital environments. We conjecture that the missing abstraction to automate robotics research is a repeatable feedback loop for real-world policy improvement: reset the scene, execute a policy, verify the outcome, and refine the next iteration. To bridge this gap, we introduce ENPIRE, a harness framework for coding agents that instantiates this physical feedback routine with four core modules: an Environment module (EN) for automatic reset and verification, a Policy Improvement module (PI) that launches policy refinement, a Rollout module (R) to evaluate policies with one or multiple physical robots operating in parallel, and an Evolution module (E) in which coding agents analyze logs, consult literature, improve training infrastructure and algorithm code to address failure modes. This closed-loop system transforms real-world manipulation learning into a controllable optimization procedure, minimizing human effort while allowing fair ablations across training recipe and agent variants. Powered by ENPIRE, frontier coding agents can autonomously train a policy to achieve a 99% success rate on challenging, dexterous manipulation tasks, such as organizing a pin box, fastening a zip tie, and tool use, a process that further accelerates when we dispatch an agent team on a robot fleet. Our results suggest a practical and scalable path toward deploying coding agents to autonomously advancing robotics in the physical world.

21.
arXiv (CS.CL) 2026-06-16

State-Grounded Multi-Agent Synthetic Data Generation for Tool-Augmented LLMs

Training tool-augmented LLM agents requires large corpora of multi-turn, tool-grounded conversational data that is expensive to annotate, privacy-constrained in production settings, and largely absent from public datasets. We present StateGen, a synthetic data generation platform that produces scored, reasoning-trace-rich training conversations by orchestrating a four-role LLM loop: a persona-conditioned user simulator, an agent under test, a state-grounded tool simulator, and a multi-axis LLM judge. The key architectural contribution is an authoritative state manager that maintains a structured world-state object across turns, enforcing a backend-is-truth invariant that eliminates the dominant class of tool-call hallucinations by construction. StateGen extends naturally to hierarchical multi-agent settings by declaring sub-agents as tools, all sharing a single state object. We report results on 64,698 evaluated conversations across three production corpora: tool-call hallucination scores reach 9.66/10, the system supports persona-driven variation via a 23-dimensional trait vector, and a cleanly separated train and golden evaluation set split confirms the data is not memorization bait (per-criterion gap analysis). Comparison with eight external systems shows that no single publicly available platform combines multi-turn generation, state-grounded tool simulation, hierarchical multi-agent support, and built-in judge scoring.

22.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-18

ActiTect: A Generalizable Machine Learning Pipeline for REM Sleep Behavior Disorder Screening through Standardized Actigraphy

arXiv:2511.05221v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Isolated rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) is a major prodromal marker of $\alpha$-synucleinopathies, often preceding the clinical onset of Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, or multiple system atrophy. While wrist-worn actimeters hold significant potential for detecting RBD in large-scale screening efforts by capturing abnormal nocturnal movements, they become inoperable without a reliable and efficient analysis pipeline. This study presents ActiTect, a fully automated, open-source machine learning tool to identify RBD from actigraphy recordings. To ensure generalizability across heterogeneous acquisition settings, our pipeline includes robust preprocessing and automated sleep-wake detection to harmonize multi-device data and extract physiologically interpretable motion features characterizing activity patterns. Model development was conducted on a cohort of 78 individuals, yielding strong discrimination under nested cross-validation (AUROC = 0.95). Generalization was confirmed on a blinded local test set (n = 31, AUROC = 0.86) and on two independent external cohorts (n = 113, AUROC = 0.84; n = 57, AUROC = 0.94). To assess real-world robustness, leave-one-dataset-out cross-validation across the internal and external cohorts demonstrated consistent performance (AUROC range = 0.84-0.89). A complementary stability analysis showed that key predictive features remained reproducible across datasets, supporting the final pooled multi-center model as a robust pre-trained resource for broader deployment. By being open-source and easy to use, our tool promotes widespread adoption and facilitates independent validation and collaborative improvements, thereby advancing the field toward a unified and generalizable RBD detection model using wearable devices.

23.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-16

Token Reduction Should Go Beyond Efficiency in Generative Models – From Vision, Language to Multimodality

arXiv:2505.18227v4 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: In Transformer architectures, tokens\textemdash discrete units derived from raw data\textemdash are formed by segmenting inputs into fixed-length chunks. Each token is then mapped to an embedding, enabling parallel attention computations while preserving the input's essential information. Due to the quadratic computational complexity of transformer self-attention mechanisms, token reduction has primarily been used as an efficiency strategy. This is especially true in single vision and language domains, where it helps balance computational costs, memory usage, and inference latency. Despite these advances, this paper argues that token reduction should transcend its traditional efficiency-oriented role in the era of large generative models. Instead, we position it as a fundamental principle in generative modeling, critically influencing both model architecture and broader applications. Specifically, we contend that across vision, language, and multimodal systems, token reduction can: (i) facilitate deeper multimodal integration and alignment, (ii) mitigate "overthinking" and hallucinations, (iii) maintain coherence over long inputs, and (iv) enhance training stability, etc. We reframe token reduction as more than an efficiency measure. By doing so, we outline promising future directions, including algorithm design, reinforcement learning-guided token reduction, token optimization for in-context learning, agentic framework design, and broader ML and scientific domains.

24.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-17

Tight $L_\infty$ Sample Complexity for Low-Degree and Sparse Boolean Polynomials

arXiv:2606.17319v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Motivated by the optimization of bounded binary black-box functions, we study the problem of learning polynomial surrogates over the Boolean hypercube. To ensure that optimizing the surrogate yields good solutions for the underlying objective, we require uniform $L_\infty$-error guarantees rather than the usual $L_2$-type guarantees. We characterize the minimax sample complexity of uniform estimation under subgaussian noise for two classes of bounded polynomials. First, for polynomials of degree at most $d$ on $n$ variables, the sample complexity scales as $n^{d+1}$. Second, for $s$-sparse Fourier-Walsh polynomials with $s \leq n$, it scales as $ns^2$. These rates differ structurally from the noiseless setting, where uniform exact recovery scales as $n^d$ and $ns$, respectively. Our lower bounds hold even for arbitrary adaptive learners, showing that the additional factors are intrinsic to the noisy cases. Standard Fourier-analysis tools for the $L_2$-norm do not naturally extend to the $L_\infty$-setting in a way that yields uniform guarantees. Our proofs overcome this difficulty by relying on suitably chosen auxiliary norms that serve as proxies for controlling the $L_\infty$-error. Together, our results provide a tight characterization of the sample complexity of learning optimization-safe polynomial surrogates.

25.
medRxiv (Medicine) 2026-06-15

Pulmonary extracellular vesicles drive alveolar macrophage dysfunction via microRNA transfer in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

Background: Alveolar macrophage (AM) dysfunction contributes to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) pathogenesis. We investigated the role of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in mediating this dysfunction. Methods: Pulmonary EVs were isolated from broncho-alveolar lavage and non-directed bronchial lavage samples of ventilated sepsis patients with and without ARDS, and post-operative control patients via ultracentrifugation. AMs were isolated from lung tissue resections of lobectomy patients. AMs were treated with pooled EVs for 24 hours prior to functional, metabolic and autophagy profiling. EV cargo was profiled via small RNA transcriptomics and proteomics. Mechanistic role of EV microRNAs was assessed via mimic / antagomir transfection. Results: Pulmonary EVs from sepsis patients with ARDS impaired AM efferocytosis, and control EVs had no effect. ARDS EV treatment enhanced AM mitochondrial-linked respiration, but not glycolysis. ARDS EV treatment impaired LC3B-II and LAMP1 expression, indicating dysregulated AM autophagy-lysosomal machinery. Proteomics revealed downregulation of innate immune pathways in ARDS EVs. Transcriptomics revealed enrichment of 24 microRNAs in ARDS EVs; miR-652-3p was the most enriched, validated by RT-qPCR. EV miR-652-3p was associated with 90-day mortality (9.20 vs 0.59 RQ, p=0.0295) and inversely correlated with oxygenation (PaO2/FiO2). AM transfection with miR-652-3p mimic induced similar dysregulation of function and autophagy as ARDS EVs. Transfection of ARDS EVs with antagomirs to miR-652-3p prior to AM treatment partially rescued efferocytosis and autophagy. Conclusions: Targeting EV miR-652-3p may restore alveolar macrophage function and reduce excessive inflammation, thus offering a novel therapeutic strategy for patients with ARDS.