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01.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-12

Interference of critical dynamics associated with zero modes

arXiv:2606.13200v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We study the interference of critical dynamics associated with zero modes (ICDZM) in the generalized Creutz ladders using closed quench paths that pass through two critical points successively. By reading out the final zero-mode transfer probability, we find rich ICDZM interference patterns dependent on the quench path. In particular, when the closed path links two topologically nontrivial phases, the ICDZM pattern may either vanish or exhibit period doubling. Within the framework of WKB analysis, this phenomenon is well clarified by the interference phase accumulated in the quench procedure. We also demonstrate that the zero-mode transfer probability can be detected by the deviation of the boundary particle number from its initial fractional value, which arises from the blending of bulk modes in the critical dynamics. As an edge defect, the zero-mode transfer probability captures both the ICDZM oscillation and the known anomalous defect production in a non-closed quench path. These results identify ICDZM and the corresponding edge defect as probes for critical dynamics associated with topological zero modes.

02.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-16

Your Agent Has a Genome: Sequence-Level Behavioral Analysis and Runtime Governance of LLM-Powered Autonomous Agents

Authors:

arXiv:2606.15579v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We propose Base Sequence Analysis, a framework that encodes the runtime behavior of LLM-powered autonomous agents into compact symbolic sequences using a four-letter alphabet: X (Explore), E (Execute), P (Plan), and V (Verify). Drawing an analogy to genomic sequence analysis, we apply n-gram pattern mining, Markov transition matrices, and point-biserial correlation to 347 real-world execution traces collected from a production ReAct agent system over 8 days. Our analysis reveals that (1) the trigram P-X-P is the only statistically significant high-risk pattern, lowering success rate by 10.4%; (2) P-ratio is the strongest negative predictor of success (r=-0.256, pV transition probability is only 2.1%, indicating a systemic verification deficit. Based on these findings, we design Governor, a three-layer runtime intervention system comprising a rule engine, a statistical accumulator, and a chi-square-based threshold adaptor. In a natural before/after deployment evaluation (N=101 vs. N=246), Governor achieves a +6.2% absolute increase in task success rate while simultaneously reducing average token consumption by 44%. To validate cross-system generality, we apply the XEPV encoding to 2,000 public SWE-agent trajectories on SWE-bench, confirming that exploration spirals and the E->V verification deficit replicate in an independent system. We outline six research directions including base sequence language models, cross-agent behavioral fingerprinting, and reward shaping, and release an open-source toolkit for reproducibility.

03.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-19

Entropy Estimation in Multi-Qutrit Systems via Variational and Classical Neural Networks

arXiv:2606.20504v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We present a systematic study of von Neumann entropy estimation in multi-qutrit quantum systems using two complementary approaches: variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) and classical convolutional neural networks (CNNs), evaluated using an ideal (noise-free) quantum simulator. For systems up to three qutrits, we construct and evaluate 11 hardware-efficient SU(3)-inspired ansatzes. A parameter sweep shows that estimation accuracy is primarily determined by the number of trainable parameters, provided sufficient entanglement is present. Based on this study, we fix the parameter count to approximately 120 for subsequent experiments, observing that increasing entangling-gate counts beyond a threshold yields only marginal improvements. For larger systems (two to five qutrits), we use a CNN trained on measurement outcomes from tensor-product mutually unbiased bases. The model achieves accurate and stable predictions and exhibits a systematic improvement in performance with system size, with the highest errors for two-qutrit systems and the lowest for five-qutrit systems. Notably, using only 12.5% of the measurements required for full state tomography is sufficient to reach 90th-percentile absolute errors of approximately 0.13-0.16 nats for both four- and five-qutrit systems. The CNN model is also robust to shot noise and generalizes well to out-of-distribution states. Overall, within the simulated settings studied here, our results indicate a transition in practical methods: VQAs are effective for small systems, while CNN-based estimators offer improved scalability and robustness for larger qutrit systems.

04.
arXiv (CS.CV) 2026-06-16

Decoupled Motion Representation Learning for Moving Infrared Small Target Detection

Infrared small target detection in dynamic scenes remains challenging due to the highly coupled motions among targets, imaging platforms, and dynamic backgrounds. Existing multi-frame methods usually perform implicit temporal modeling, where coherent background dynamics dominate motion correspondence learning, leading to an inherent trade-off between detection and false alarms. In this work, we observe that background motions exhibit strong global coherence, whereas small targets mainly correspond to sparse local motion anomalies. Moreover, many false-alarm responses maintain high consistency with globally coherent motion patterns, indicating that they mainly originate from coherent background dynamics rather than genuine target motions. Based on these observations, we propose a decoupled motion representation learning framework for moving infrared small target detection. Specifically, an explicit motion branch is introduced to model globally coherent motion dynamics using pretrained optical flow priors, together with a structure-preserving self-supervised adaptation strategy for infrared motion correspondence learning. Meanwhile, an implicit motion branch based on deformable feature alignment is designed to capture target-sensitive local motion anomalies under coherent motion guidance. Furthermore, a coherent-motion-guided local anomaly reasoning module is proposed to identify and suppress coherent-motion-induced false responses during localized motion modeling. Extensive experiments on two challenging infrared small target detection benchmarks demonstrate that the proposed method consistently outperforms existing state-of-the-art approaches, particularly in dynamic scenes with complex motions, while maintaining favorable inference efficiency.

05.
arXiv (CS.CV) 2026-06-12

A Machine Learning Framework for Real-Time Personalized Ergonomic Pose Analysis

This paper introduces a new methodology for real-time prediction of ergonomic and non-ergonomic human poses using volumetric video data in three dimensions. Although the methodology was designed for ergonomic assessments, it can be adapted to other applications requiring real-time analysis of human posture. One aspect that makes this system stand out is its ability to analyze 3D point clouds during the assessment, enabling computation from multiple angles. This overcomes a critical limitation of cameras which provide often a fixed viewpoint, thereby restricting the data available for a thorough postural evaluation, especially when occlusions occur. The system continuously and automatically performs pose inference using the chosen perspective on the real-time streaming data; however, only the poses manually selected and labeled by the user are used to train the personalized deep learning classifier. The methodology has been refined through a case study in which RGB-D cameras captured subjects performing load-lifting tasks, enabling real-time skeletal labeling. The model was trained on this data and, following the training phase, performs inference on new streaming data in real time. This research offers a scalable and pragmatic approach for real-time ergonomic evaluation by combining state-of-the-art 3D data technologies and traditional 2D pose estimation algorithms. It addresses the increasing need for safety and health monitoring in workplace environments, marking a notable contribution to the domain.

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

Learning to Inject: Automated Prompt Injection via Reinforcement Learning

arXiv:2602.05746v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Prompt injection is a critical vulnerability in LLM agents, yet the strongest methods still rely on human red-teamers and hand-crafted prompts. Adapting automated jailbreak optimizers does not close this gap: jailbreaks shape models toward generic compliance, while prompt injection requires emitting specific tool calls with correct parameters. The success signal is binary, and randomly sampled suffixes almost never trigger it, so standard optimizers have no gradient to follow. We present AutoInject, a black-box reinforcement learning (RL) framework that learns adversarial suffixes for prompt injection. A learned comparison-based reward scores each candidate against the best suffix seen so far, turning the binary signal into a dense reward suitable for RL optimization. The framework supports both online query-based attacks and offline-trained transferable suffixes that need no utility access at deployment, and incorporates a utility objective when task-completion feedback is available. On AgentDojo, AutoInject outperforms template attacks, GCG, TAP, and adaptive attack across production models, with statistically significant improvements under McNemar's test with p

07.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-18

On the Stability of the Jacobian Matrix in Deep Neural Networks

arXiv:2506.08764v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Deep neural networks are known to suffer from exploding or vanishing gradients as depth increases, a phenomenon closely tied to the spectral behavior of the input-output Jacobian. Prior work has identified critical initialization schemes that ensure Jacobian stability, but these analyses are typically restricted to fully connected networks with i.i.d. weights. In this work, we go significantly beyond these limitations: we establish a general stability theorem for deep neural networks that accommodates sparsity (such as that introduced by pruning) and non-i.i.d., weakly correlated weights (e.g. induced by training). Our results rely on recent advances in random matrix theory, and provide rigorous guarantees for spectral stability in a much broader class of network models. This extends the theoretical foundation for initialization schemes in modern neural networks with structured and dependent randomness.

08.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-11

GEAR-VLA: Learning Geometry-Aware Action Representations for Generalizable Robotic Manipulation

arXiv:2606.08530v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models achieve strong benchmark performance but still struggle in real-world deployment with unseen objects, background shifts, and different robot embodiments. We argue that this stems from the lack of a unified geometry-aware manipulation representation, leaving existing VLAs vulnerable to low-level trajectory supervision, misaligned 3D features, and embodiment differences. To address this, we propose GEAR-VLA, a VLA framework for learning unified geometry-aware action representations for generalizable robotic manipulation. GEAR-VLA adopts coarse-to-fine action learning, where multi-source embodied pretraining equips the VLM with embodied reasoning and discrete action understanding before latent action tokens connect action semantics to a gradient-decoupled DiT continuous action expert. It further performs semantic-aligned 3D integration by aligning a trainable 3D spatial backbone with the VLA representation while freezing the original VLM-aligned visual pathway. To share this representation across robots, GEAR-VLA uses embodiment canonicalization, where embodiment-aware states and embodiment-invariant actions confine robot differences to the low-level interface. Extensive simulation and real-world experiments demonstrate strong generalization: GEAR-VLA achieves state-of-the-art performance on LIBERO, zero-shot LIBERO-Plus, and RoboTwin 2.0, reaches 85.9% success on AgileX and 81.0% on the pretraining-unseen LDT-01 embodiment, and obtains 90.1% success on a 6,360-trial universal grasping benchmark with 212 unseen objects. Code and models will be released at https://github.com/babynabeauty/GEAR-VLA.

09.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-18

DRIFT: Refining Instruction Data via On-Policy Data Attribution

arXiv:2606.18307v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Optimizing the training data distribution for Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) dictates the capability of Large Language Models (LLMs). While existing data curation methods excel at accelerating training under constrained budgets, they are less suited to elevating the capability upper bound. The challenge here is no longer to identify a smaller subset that preserves performance, but to refine the data distribution toward instances most capable of improving the final model. To address this problem, we explore instance-level data attribution using Influence Functions (IF). We identify that standard IF formulations struggle in this setting due to two structural limitations: a proximity gap caused by off-policy validation targets, and a severe bias towards gradient norm. We propose DRIFT (Data Refinement via On-Policy Influence Functions for Supervised Fine-Tuning). Instead of relying on external reference data, DRIFT utilizes the model's on-policy rollouts as validation targets, which empirically minimizes the parameter proximity gap and better aligns with the local neighborhood assumption of IF. It further applies signed weighting based on trajectory correctness and debiases influence scores against the gradient hacking issue, allowing a small set of validation queries to act as reliable anchors for attributing the full dataset. Experiments on 7B-parameter instruction and reasoning models show that DRIFT consistently raises the performance ceiling on both, outperforming existing data curation baselines.

10.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-17

MGUP: A Momentum-Gradient Alignment Update Policy for Stochastic Optimization

arXiv:2606.17526v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Efficient optimization is essential for training large language models. Although intra-layer selective updates have been explored, a general mechanism that enables fine-grained control while ensuring convergence guarantees is still lacking. To bridge this gap, we propose MGUP, a novel mechanism for selective updates. MGUP augments standard momentum-based optimizers by applying larger step-sizes to a selected fixed proportion of parameters in each iteration, while applying smaller, non-zero step-sizes to the rest. As a nearly {plug-and-play} module, MGUP seamlessly integrates with optimizers such as AdamW, Lion, and Muon. This yields powerful variants such as MGUP-AdamW, MGUP-Lion, and MGUP-Muon. Under standard assumptions, we provide theoretical convergence guarantees for MGUP-AdamW (without weight decay) in stochastic optimization. Extensive experiments across diverse tasks, including MAE pretraining, LLM pretraining, and downstream fine-tuning, demonstrate that our MGUP-enhanced optimizers achieve superior or more stable performance compared to their original base optimizers. We offer a principled, versatile, and theoretically grounded strategy for efficient intra-layer selective updates, accelerating and stabilizing the training of large-scale models. The code is publicly available at https://github.com/MaeChd/MGUP.

11.
arXiv (CS.CL) 2026-06-16

DRA-GRPO: Your GRPO Needs to Know Diverse Reasoning Paths for Mathematical Reasoning

Post-training LLMs with Reinforcement Learning, specifically Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO), has emerged as a paradigm for enhancing mathematical reasoning. However, standard GRPO relies on scalar correctness rewards that are often non-injective with respect to semantic content: distinct reasoning paths receive identical rewards. This leads to a Diversity-Quality Inconsistency, where the policy collapses into a narrow set of dominant modes while ignoring equally valid but structurally novel strategies. To bridge this gap, we propose Diversity-aware Reward Adjustment (DRA), a theoretically grounded framework that calibrates the reward signal using the semantic density of sampled groups. By leveraging Submodular Mutual Information (SMI), DRA implements an Inverse Propensity Scoring (IPS) mechanism that effectively de-biases the gradient estimation. This creates a repulsive force against redundancy, driving the policy to achieve better coverage of the high-reward landscape. Our method is plug-and-play and integrates seamlessly with GRPO variants. Empirical evaluations on five math benchmarks demonstrate that DRA-GRPO consistently outperforms strong baselines, achieving an average accuracy of 58.2% on DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B with only 7,000 training samples and $55 cost, highlighting the critical role of diversity calibration in data-efficient alignment. The code is available at https://github.com/xiwenc1/DRA-GRPO.

12.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-17

Softmax as Linear Attention in the Large-Prompt Regime: a Measure-based Perspective

arXiv:2512.11784v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Softmax attention is a central component of transformer architectures, yet its nonlinear structure poses significant challenges for theoretical analysis. We develop a unified, measure-based framework for studying single-layer softmax attention under both finite and infinite prompts. For i.i.d. Gaussian inputs, we lean on the fact that the softmax operator converges in the infinite-prompt limit to a linear operator acting on the underlying input-token measure. Building on this insight, we establish non-asymptotic concentration bounds for the output and gradient of softmax attention, quantifying how rapidly the finite-prompt model approaches its infinite-prompt counterpart, and prove that this concentration remains stable along the entire training trajectory in general in-context learning settings with sub-Gaussian tokens. In the case of in-context linear regression, we use the tractable infinite-prompt dynamics to analyze training at finite prompt length. Our results allow optimization analyses developed for linear attention to transfer directly to softmax attention when prompts are sufficiently long, showing that large-prompt softmax attention inherits the analytical structure of its linear counterpart. This, in turn, provides a principled and broadly applicable toolkit for studying the training dynamics and statistical behavior of softmax attention layers in large prompt regimes.

13.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-11

Single Photon Cross-Phase Shifts Can Be Enhanced by Localization in both Frequency and Time

arXiv:2606.11516v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Single-photon optical nonlinearities face a fundamental trade-off: maximum nonlinearity requires both spectral resonance (narrow bandwidth) and high peak intensity (short duration), constraints that are incompatible due to the time-energy uncertainty relation. We demonstrate experimentally that this limitation does not need to exist in cases involving post-selection. We measure a cross-phase shift (XPS) produced by a resonant photon from a narrow-band source that is first transmitted through a cold atomic cloud and then localized in time through detection. The peak size of this XPS is greatly enhanced compared to that of Gaussian single-photon-level pulses without post-selection, benefiting from the narrow bandwidth of the resonant prepared state and the high intensity of the post-selected state simultaneously. We measure enhancements in the peak XPS of 6$\pm$1 at an optical depth (OD) of 2.4$\pm$0.1, and our results are in qualitative agreement across a range of optical depths with the recently developed weak value theory of atomic excitation [Thompson et al., APL Quantum 2, 036108 (2025)] for such post-selected photons. This work uncovers new consequences of having simultaneous knowledge of frequency and time, raising new foundational questions about how a particle behaves, and interacts with other systems, when its preparation and post-selection are non-commuting.

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

Posterior Twins: Distributional Behavioral Simulation for Enterprise Decisions

Authors:

arXiv:2606.16415v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Enterprise behavioral simulation requires more than producing a plausible response. Many decisions depend on the shape of a population under a proposed action: which segments accept, defect, hesitate, or move into risk-sensitive states. This paper introduces Posterior Twins, a memory-grounded digital-twin approach that represents likely behavior as an updated distribution under a specific decision context. We evaluate a family of Twinning Labs behavioral-model operating points on a 226-example held-out behavioral-response benchmark and report both modal accuracy and Wasserstein-1 distance. The results show that modal accuracy and distributional fidelity identify different operating regimes. TL-Twin Alpha achieves the lowest observed Wasserstein-1 distance in the reported result set ($W_1 = 1.16$), while TL-Twin Delta and TL-Twin Gamma provide balanced operating points near the modal-accuracy frontier. The paper frames these results as a systems result: governed memory, behavioral model routing, scenario orchestration, distributional aggregation, and auditability are necessary for turning simulated behavior into reusable enterprise decision evidence.

15.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-17

Variational autoencoders with latent high-dimensional steady geometric flows for dynamics

Authors:

arXiv:2410.10137v5 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We develop Riemannian approaches to variational autoencoders (VAEs) for PDE-type ambient data with regularizing geometric latent dynamics, which we refer to as VAE-DLM, or VAEs with dynamical latent manifolds. We redevelop the VAE framework such that manifold geometries, subject to our geometric flow, embedded in Euclidean space are learned in the intermediary latent space developed by encoders and decoders. By tailoring the geometric flow in which the latent space evolves, we induce latent geometric properties of our choosing, which are reflected in empirical performance. We reformulate the traditional evidence lower bound (ELBO) loss with a considerate choice of prior. We develop a linear geometric flow with a steady-state regularizing term. This flow requires only automatic differentiation of one time derivative, and can be solved in moderately high dimensions in a physics-informed approach, allowing more expressive latent representations. We discuss how this flow can be formulated as a gradient flow, and maintains entropy away from metric singularity. This, along with an eigenvalue penalization condition, helps ensure the manifold is sufficiently large in measure, nondegenerate, and a canonical geometry, which contribute to a robust representation. Our methods focus on the modified multi-layer perceptron architecture with tanh activations for the manifold encoder-decoder. We demonstrate, on our datasets of interest, our methods perform at least as well as the traditional VAE, and oftentimes better. Our methods can outperform this and a VAE endowed with our proposed architecture, frequently reducing out-of-distribution (OOD) error between 15% to 35% on select datasets. We highlight our method on ambient PDEs whose solutions maintain minimal variation in late times. We provide empirical justification towards how we can improve robust learning for external dynamics with VAEs.

17.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-11

Locally Acting Grover Mixers for Constraint-Preserving QAOA

arXiv:2606.11530v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The Grover mixer quantum alternating operator ansatz (GM-QAOA) employs the Grover mixer to confine the quantum evolution to the feasible subspace defined by the problem. Its mixing unitary, however, requires a global multi-controlled phase-shift gate acting on all qubits, resulting in substantial circuit overhead on near-term quantum devices. In this work, we propose locally acting Grover mixers tailored to initial states that admit a product structure over disjoint qubit subsystems, which may be obtained by encoding only a subset of problem constraints into the initial state preparation. The proposed method preserves the search space defined by the initial state while significantly lowering implementation cost, as the global multi-controlled phase-shift gate is replaced with local operations on disjoint subsystems. Numerical simulations on the exact-cover problem and the traveling salesman problem (TSP) demonstrate that the proposed method achieves convergence behavior comparable to that of the original GM-QAOA, while using shallower circuits with fewer gates. We further compare two constraint encoding strategies for the TSP, encoding only a subset of constraints versus all constraints into the initial state preparation, and show that the former combined with the proposed mixer yields markedly more compact circuits at the point where comparable solution quality is achieved.

18.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-11

Logical error estimation from syndrome data of surface-code experiments

arXiv:2606.11496v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Decoders for quantum error correction (QEC) experiments rely on detector error models (DEMs), which encode, for each error, its probability and the detectors and logical observables it flips. Here we show that estimating DEM event probabilities from experimental syndromes is feasible, avoids independent device benchmarking, and produces useful decoder priors for estimating and reducing decoded logical error probabilities. We evaluate our methods using open-source data from surface-code memory experiments performed on Google's Willow chip, and we carry out analogous surface-code experiments on IBM's \texttt{ibm\_miami} processor. Despite the different physical error scales of the Google and IBM devices, in both cases our estimated DEMs improve logical error probabilities relative to baseline device-informed DEMs, typically at the $5\%-10\%$ level and with larger gains in some IBM cases, without additional calibration circuits, decoder fine-tuning, or supervised fitting to logical outcomes.

19.
PLOS Medicine 2026-06-16

The data transparency crisis in research: Lessons from systematic reviews and meta-analyses

by Saul Martin-Rodriguez, Rodrigo Fernandez-Gonzalo, David Moher Summary points Systematic reviews and meta-analyses underpin clinical guidelines and health policy, yet their validity may be compromised by limited access to underlying datasets and associated analytical code. Reliance on incomplete or inconsistently reported summary statistics forces researchers to use imputation and unverifiable assumptions, which can distort effect estimates and mislead clinical decision-making. The consequences extend beyond methodology: flawed evidence synthesis can influence treatment recommendations, healthcare spending, and patient safety, as illustrated by historical cases such as hormone replacement therapy. Despite widespread data-sharing policies, compliance remains low, enforcement weak, and monitoring almost non-existent, with many datasets remaining unavailable or inaccessible. This Policy Forum argues for strengthening enforceable data-sharing mechanisms, including clearer enforcement and pragmatic verification approaches within editorial workflows.

20.
arXiv (math.PR) 2026-06-11

Marked random graphs with given degree sequence: large deviations on the local topology

arXiv:2401.00351v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We investigate the behavior of the empirical neighborhood distribution of marked graphs in the framework of local weak convergence. Here we extend known results by considering uniform random graphs with given degree sequences and i.i.d. marks on half-edges and vertices. We establish a large deviation principle for such families of empirical measures. The proof builds on Bordenave and Caputo's seminal 2015 paper, and Delgosha and Anantharam's 2019 introduction of BC entropy, relying on combinatorial lemmas that allow one to construct suitable approximations of measures supported on marked trees. Possible applications of these results are in the study of interacting diffusions on top of random graphs.

21.
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.

22.
arXiv (CS.CV) 2026-06-16

Through-Foliage Surface-Temperature Reconstruction for Early Wildfire Detection

We present a method to reconstruct surface temperatures through forest vegetation by combining signal processing and machine learning, enabling fully automated aerial wildfire monitoring with drones for early fire detection. Synthetic aperture (SA) sensing reduces canopy occlusion but introduces thermal blur. To overcome this, we train a visual state space model to recover subtle thermal signals of partially occluded soil and fire hotspots from blurred data. To address limited real-world training data, we generate realistic surface temperature simulations using a latent diffusion model, temperature augmentation, and procedural thermal forest modeling. On simulated datasets, our method reduces RMSE by 2-2.5 versus conventional thermal and uncorrected SA imaging; in field experiments on hotspots, RMSE improved by 12.8-fold and 2.6-fold, respectively. Our approach also generalizes to other thermal signals, including human signatures, capturing morphology and extent – critical where simple thresholding fails – while conventional imaging struggles with partial occlusion.

23.
PLOS Medicine 2026-05-11

Connected or chained by social media? Child and adolescent mental health in a digital era

Authors:

by Silja Kosola Social media has evolved from connection to compulsion, disproportionately harming children and adolescents. Addictive designs together with developmental vulnerability fuel mental health risks and highlight the urgent need for stricter age limits and stronger protections. In this Perspective, Silja Kosola outlines how social media disproportionately harms child and adolescent mental health, and argues that while recent policy changes aimed at protecting youth from social media are welcome, stricter age limits and greater accountability of social media companies are needed.

24.
arXiv (CS.CL) 2026-06-18

Improving Medical Communication using Rubric-Guided Counterfactual Recommendations

Text-based telemedicine increasingly relies on lightweight patient feedback, however, such feedback primarily reflects perceived communication quality rather than medical accuracy. We introduce an LM-guided counterfactual recommendation pipeline that discovers and refines interpretable communication features such as tone, personalization, actionability and completeness in addressing patient concerns, without interfering with the medical content. These features are used together with patient-doctor interaction metadata to estimate positive feedback. At inference time, the system searches over low-cost ordinal feature changes and recommends minimal communication changes predicted to increase the probability of positive feedback, while independent auditor models test whether these gains generalize beyond the selection model. Across interactions, recommendations yield a mean +6.41% gain in predicted positive feedback probability under independent auditors, and are non-negative for 93.31% of recommendations. These results suggest that small, interpretable communication changes can capture most predicted gains while preserving the doctor's control over medical reasoning and final wording.

25.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-11

Offline Diffusion Policy for Multi-User Delay-Constrained Scheduling

arXiv:2501.12942v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Effective multi-user delay-constrained scheduling is crucial in various real-world applications, including embodied AI, instant messaging, live streaming, and data center management, where efficient resource allocation is required among users with diverse delay sensitivities. In these scenarios, schedulers must make real-time decisions to satisfy both delay and resource constraints without prior knowledge of system dynamics, which are often time-varying and challenging to estimate. {Current learning-based methods typically require online interactions with actual systems during the training stage. Therefore, these approaches are often difficult or impractical, as they can significantly degrade system performance and incur substantial service costs.} To address these challenges, we propose a novel offline reinforcement learning-based algorithm, named \underline{S}cheduling By \underline{O}ffline Learning with \underline{C}ritic Guidance and \underline{D}iffusion Model (SOCD), to learn efficient scheduling policies purely from pre-collected offline data. SOCD innovatively employs a diffusion policy, complemented by a sampling-free critic network for policy guidance. By integrating the Lagrangian multiplier optimization into the offline reinforcement learning, SOCD efficiently trains high-quality constraint-aware policies exclusively from available datasets, eliminating the need for online interactions with the system. Experimental results demonstrate that SOCD is resilient to various system dynamics, including partially observable and large-scale environments, and delivers superior performance compared to existing methods.