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01.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-11

Space-sampled Value Decay: Forgetting Mechanisms for Non-stationary Deep Reinforcement Learning

Authors:
Felix St\"orck↗Fabian Hinder↗Barbara Hammer↗

arXiv:2606.11797v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Studies on rodents such as mice have shown the capabilities to adapt their behavior when dealing with changing parameters (``drift'') of the environment even if no information about change is provided (uncertainty) – a behavior that can be modeled by forgetting mechanisms. Non-stationary Reinforcement Learning (NSRL) deals with adapting state-of-the-art RL methods to deal with changing environments: these however usually require (partially) perfect information about the drift such as ``task IDs'' or ``context''. To mitigate the effects of drift, this work develops Space-sampled Value Decay as an explicit forgetting mechanism for value-based deep RL architectures as a simple yet effective approach. In particular we demonstrate and discuss positive effects but also limitations in achieved returns for modifications of Deep Q-networks (DQN) and Soft Actor-Critic (SAC) when evaluated on non-stationary environments.

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02.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-18

BLADE: Scalable Bi-level Adaptive Data Selection for LLM Training

Authors:
Jiaxing Wang↗Deping Xiang↗Jin Xu↗Zirui Liu↗Zicheng Zhang↗Guoqiang Gong↗Jun Fang↗Chao Liu↗Pengzhang Liu↗Tongxuan Liu↗Ke Zhang↗Qixia Jiang↗…

arXiv:2606.18650v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: As Large Language Model (LLM) datasets scale to trillions of tokens, data selection has emerged as a critical frontier to filter out uninformative noise and construct adaptive learning trajectories. Beyond static heuristic filtering, advanced data selection methods for LLM training largely follow two paradigms, each with fundamental limitations. Influence-based methods provide principled bi-level objectives but require intractable inverse-Hessian computations, while excess-loss methods are computationally efficient but rely on a static reference model that becomes misaligned with the evolving proxy model during training. We propose BLADE (Bi-Level Adaptive Data sElection), a Hessian-free framework for data selection. BLADE reformulates the bi-level optimization problem underlying influence-based methods as a penalized single-level objective via Lagrange multipliers, avoiding inverse-Hessian computation while revealing a principled connection to excess-loss based data selection. The resulting objective recovers an excess-loss form but replaces the static reference model with a dynamic one that stays synchronized with training. Theoretically, we prove that this penalized formulation guarantees first-order convergence. For efficient online batch selection, we instantiate BLADE as a memoryless randomized block-coordinate Frank-Wolfe algorithm. Extensive experiments show that BLADE consistently outperforms state-of-the-art data selection baselines, providing a practical recipe for LLM training.

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03.
bioRxiv (Bioinfo) 2026-06-14

FENNEC: Fine-Tuned Ensemble Neural Networks Accelerate Chemically Modified siRNA Design and Screening

Authors:
Larsen↗A. W↗Butnaru↗Braun↗Rotrattanadumrong↗Berninger↗Yonchev↗Gagneur↗Marsico↗

Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are a clinically validated therapeutic modality, yet designing potent chemically modified siRNAs remains a costly and iterative process, limited by scarce public data. Computational prediction of siRNA efficacy is therefore essential for rational design and accelerated preclinical development. However, despite the critical role of chemical modifications in therapeutic performance, current state-of-the-art machine learning methods either are not designed to model the chemical diversity of therapeutic siRNAs, or exhibit poor generalization performance. Here, we present FENNEC (Fine-Tuned Ensemble of Neural Networks for siRNA Efficiency Characterization), a machine-learning framework for predicting siRNA activity across chemically diverse design spaces. To support this effort, we curated the largest patent-derived dataset to date of chemically modified siRNAs from 42 patents using OCR-based table extraction and stringent filtering. FENNEC combines temporal convolutional networks with thermodynamic descriptors, experimental covariates, and embeddings from RNA foundation models to capture both local chemical determinants and broader target-context information. Importantly, we show that language-model-derived embeddings provide meaningful higher-order representations of target transcripts, particularly in data-scarce settings. FENNEC achieved robust predictive performance across both gene-level and scaffold-level validation settings, with additional experimental validation on a novel AHSA1-targeting dataset further supporting its generalizability across chemically modified siRNAs. In benchmarking, FENNEC outperformed classical machine-learning and state-of-the-art deep learning models, demonstrating generalization to unseen chemistry. Model interpretation recovered established design principles, including position-specific effects of glycol nucleic acid, 2'-fluoro modifications, and phosphorothioate backbones. Furthermore, in silico perturbation analyses suggest that FENNEC can serve not only as a predictive model, but also as an oracle for the design and optimization of chemically modified siRNAs. Together, our work addresses a key gap in the field by enabling chemically aware deep learning for siRNA design, supported by a large and diverse collection of chemically modified siRNA measurements.

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04.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-12

Optimal classical shadow estimation of unitary channels at Heisenberg limit

Authors:
Entong He↗Zihao Li↗Noam Scully↗Sisi Zhou↗Yuxiang Yang↗

arXiv:2606.13638v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Full tomography of an unknown quantum evolution is resource-intensive and often unnecessary when the goal is only to predict selected properties. This motivates the study of classical shadow estimation of unitary channels (CSEU), a task in which one queries an unknown $d$-dimensional unitary $U$ and stores classical data that can later be used to predict expectation values $\mathrm{tr}[O \cdot U\rho U^\dagger]$ up to additive error $\varepsilon$ for arbitrary input states $\rho$ and observables $O$. We propose a parallel, non-adaptive CSEU protocol using $\mathcal{O}(d\varepsilon^{-1})$ queries when the input states or observables have constant rank. This achieves Heisenberg scaling with respect to $\varepsilon$ and is query-optimal, as we prove a matching $\Omega(d\varepsilon^{-1})$ lower bound that remains valid even with stronger access to the unknown unitary. Our query-optimal CSEU protocol provides a versatile and powerful tool for quantum learning theory, pushing the performance limits of several fundamental learning tasks, including unitary channel tomography, Hamiltonian learning, boundary-regime quantum channel tomography, Pauli transfer matrix learning, inverse-free amplitude estimation, pure-state property estimation, and shallow-circuit learning. Remarkably, we show that optimal unitary channel tomography can be achieved using only parallel queries, closing the gap between the best achievable efficiency of parallel and sequential tomography protocols. Together, these applications establish our framework as a fundamental tool for learning properties of quantum processes, particularly for certain key tasks that require high precision.

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05.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-11

MetaPlate: Counterfactual-Guided RAG-LLM Tool for Personalized Food Recommendation and Hyperglycemia Prevention

Authors:
Asiful Arefeen↗Carol Johnston↗Hassan Ghasemzadeh↗

arXiv:2606.10120v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Postprandial hyperglycemia is a key risk factor for metabolic disorders; however, existing dietary guidance is often static, impractical, and insufficiently personalized, providing recommendations that are difficult to follow or not impactful. While recent advances leverage continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and machine learning to predict glycemic responses, these approaches are largely predictive and lack actionable guidance. Moreover, recommendation systems are often misaligned with user goals and require extensive input. We present MetaPlate, a counterfactual explanation (CF) guided, context-aware decision-support framework that generates personalized meal recommendations to mitigate postprandial glucose excursions in healthy adults. MetaPlate integrates multimodal data, including CGM readings, wearable-derived physiological signals, and user-provided meal inputs from $25$ individuals to model pre-meal context. A machine learning model predicts glucose response, while a CF optimization module adjusts meal composition modifying macronutrient amounts to maintain glucose levels within a target range ($\leq 140$ mg/dL). An LLM-based retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) layer enhances interpretability by producing human-readable recommendations using constrained search of the USDA food database. We evaluate MetaPlate via a structured expert-in-the-loop assessment with registered dietitians (RDs), comparing performance before and after prompt refinement. Results show improvements in meal realism, portion suitability, and recommendation likelihood, with expert feedback indicating a shift from clinically implausible outputs to actionable, contextually appropriate recommendations. Our findings emphasize the importance of domain knowledge and structured constraints in LLM-driven systems and highlight the potential of MetaPlate as a real-time personalized dietary decision-support tool.

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06.
medRxiv (Medicine) 2026-06-16

Comparative Effectiveness and Safety of Prophylactic Vasopressors for Preventing Post-induction Hypotension in the Elderly: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis

Authors:
Zhang↗Wang↗Duan↗C. L↗Di↗Y. R↗

Background: Post-induction hypotension is a predictable haemodynamic hazard in older adults undergoing general anaesthesia. Prevention remains divided among volume optimisation, anaesthetic dose reduction, rescue treatment after hypotension occurs and proactive vasoactive support. Methods: We searched PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, CENTRAL, CNKI, Wanfang and VIP from inception to 30 March 2026. Eligible studies were randomised trials of prophylactic vasoactive drugs given before, during or immediately after induction in older adults. The primary outcome was post-induction hypotension. Secondary outcomes were post-induction mean arterial pressure (MAP), systolic arterial pressure (SBP), heart rate (HR) and reported haemodynamic adverse events. Random-effects network meta-analysis was used, and confidence in network estimates was assessed using CINeMA principles. Results: Thirty-one trials including 2,821 participants were included in the revised network. Compared with placebo/control, all active agents favoured lower post-induction hypotension. The most favourable point estimates were observed for phenylephrine (odds ratio [OR] 0.17, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.01 to 2.16) and metaraminol (OR 0.19, 95% CI 0.02 to 1.53), although both were imprecise. More precise reductions were observed for methoxamine (OR 0.23, 95% CI 0.13 to 0.43), norepinephrine (OR 0.25, 95% CI 0.13 to 0.47) and ephedrine (OR 0.34, 95% CI 0.19 to 0.63). Phenylephrine ranked highest for MAP support, norepinephrine ranked highest for SBP support, and ephedrine ranked highest for HR preservation. Global inconsistency was detected for SBP but not for hypotension incidence, MAP or HR, supporting cautious profile-based interpretation. Conclusions: Prophylactic vasopressor choice during induction should be guided by haemodynamic phenotype rather than ranking alone. In the revised network, active prophylaxis consistently favoured lower hypotension, but sparse nodes produced uncertainty. Norepinephrine retained a comparatively balanced profile when vasodilatory post-induction hypotension is anticipated, phenylephrine and related alpha-agonists provided stronger pressure support when HR and cardiac-output reserve are preserved, and ephedrine was most relevant when chronotropic support is desired. Keywords: general anaesthesia; induction; hypotension; norepinephrine; phenylephrine; ephedrine; network meta-analysis; older adults.

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07.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-16

How Controlling the Variance can Improve Training Stability of Sparsely Activated DNNs and CNNs

Authors:
Emily Dent↗Jared Tanner↗

arXiv:2602.05779v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: The Edge-of-Chaos (EoC) theory developed for the random initialization of deep networks allows more efficient training by both preserving information in the initial outputs of the network and minimising exploding or vanishing gradients through characterisation of the intermediate layers as Gaussian processes. This EoC theory provides formulae for the choice of the initialisation distribution variances of the weights and biases. For activations which are approximately linear around the origin, the EoC theory typically encourages the Gaussian process variance to converge towards zero with increasing depth. Here we consider the less studied setting of highly sparsity inducing activations where a large region of values near the origin are set to zero. In this setting we prove a new phenomenon whereby initialisations leading to larger fixed Gaussian processes are beneficial to training stability. This theory informs a new, yet simple, initialisation strategy that allows training DNNs and CNNs with as large as 90\% sparsity in the hidden layers.

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08.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-12

Path integral control of open quantum systems

Authors:
Aar\'on Villanueva↗Hilbert Kappen↗

arXiv:2410.18635v4 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We investigate open-loop quantum state preparation for a class of open quantum systems whose dynamics follow a Gorini-Kossakowski-Lindblad-Sudarshan (GKLS) master equation that admits a trajectory-based stochastic representation. The deterministic control objective is reformulated as a stochastic optimal control problem – interpreting stochasticity as a methodological tool akin to stochastic Schrödinger equation unravelings – which situates the problem within the path integral control framework. For the class of GKLS generators under consideration, this reformulation leads to an explicit expression for the optimal control as a weighted average over stochastic quantum trajectories, thereby eliminating the need for gradient evaluations. Building on this theoretical result, we derive a control update rule for piecewise-constant control pulses and demonstrate that adaptive importance sampling progressively enhances the control estimator during optimization, culminating in the algorithm we term Path integral Quantum Control (PiQC). We further introduce an annealed variant of PiQC, wherein a synthetic noise schedule gradually steers open-system trajectories toward closed-system dynamics, enabling high-fidelity unitary state preparation. Numerical studies on a dissipative single-qubit system and a multi-qubit Nuclear Magnetic Resonance model verify that PiQC yields precise open-loop controls and displays robustness to Hamiltonian perturbations. We propose PiQC as a trajectory-based alternative to gradient-based approaches, which might offer a viable solution in quantum control problems where gradient computation is infeasible or computationally demanding.

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09.
arXiv (CS.CV) 2026-06-11

SCAIL-2: Unifying Controlled Character Animation with End-to-end In-Context Conditioning

Authors:
Wenhao Yan↗Fengjia Guo↗Zhuoyi Yang↗Jie Tang↗

Controlled character animation requires transferring motion from a driving sequence to a reference character. Prior works heavily rely on intermediate representations, including pose skeletons to represent motion or masked background to represent environment, which inevitably leads to information loss. To address this, we present SCAIL-2, a framework that bypasses those intermediates and achieves end-to-end character animation. By directly concatenating driving videos to the sequence, the model can obtain all the required visual information from the input video. To address the lack of end-to-end data, we unify sub-tasks of character animation with decoupled conditions and then curate a pipeline to synthesize MotionPair-60K, an end-to-end motion transfer dataset containing heterogeneous tasks of character animation. To achieve the unification, we utilize in-context mask conditioning and mode-specific RoPE as soft guidance beyond textual instructions and raw visual information. To address synthetic discrepancy in detailed regions, we propose Bias-Aware DPO to construct preference items to mitigate the errors. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method substantially outperforms existing state-of-the-art approaches in various character animation tasks. A large subset of synthetic data as well as model weights will be released at our project page: https://teal024.github.io/SCAIL-2/.

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10.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-12

Approximability limits for bounded-degree max-LINSAT and implications for decoded quantum interferometry

Authors:
Maximilian J. Kramer↗Carsten Schubert↗Jens Eisert↗

arXiv:2606.13570v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: For general max-k-XORSAT with $k \geq 3$, no polynomial-time algorithm can do substantially better than random guessing on worst-case instances unless $\mathsf{P} = \mathsf{NP}$: approximating beyond the random-assignment value of $1/2$ is $\mathsf{NP}$-hard. The picture changes when each variable appears in at most $D$ constraints. In that bounded-degree setting, polynomial-time algorithms can provably beat the random baseline by an additive amount of order $1/\sqrt{D}$. For Boolean instances, this scaling is known to be optimal: the matching hardness result is due to Trevisan, while the corresponding algorithmic guarantee was established by Barak et al. Whether the same holds over general finite fields, and what it implies for quantum algorithms, has not been established. We make this connection explicit and extend the hardness to max-E$k$-LINSAT$(q,r)$ with bounded degree $D$ and over arbitrary finite fields $\mathbb{F}_q$, proving that it is $\mathsf{NP}$-hard to exceed $r/q + \mathcal{O}_{q,r}(1/\sqrt{D})$. These results provide the complexity-theoretic benchmark for the bounded-degree instances targeted by decoded quantum interferometry (DQI), QAOA, and classical heuristics. Any quantum advantage on bounded-degree instances is therefore confined to the constant prefactor. We further show that in the context of DQI and on $(k,D)$-regular instances, this prefactor is sensitive to the nature of the decoder: DQI with classical decoders faces an information-theoretic $1/\sqrt{D \log D}$ barrier that prevents it from matching the hardness scaling, while DQI with quantum decoders is compatible with the $1/\sqrt{D}$ scaling – identifying quantum decoding as the key ingredient for matching the complexity-theoretic scaling with DQI.

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

Higher order PCA-like rotation-invariant features for detailed shape descriptors modulo rotation

Authors:
Jarek Duda↗

PCA can be used for rotation invariant features, describing a shape with its $p_{ab}=E[(x_i-E[x_a])(x_b-E[x_b])]$ covariance matrix approximating shape by ellipsoid, allowing for rotation invariants like its traces of powers. However, real shapes are usually much more complicated, hence there is proposed its extension to e.g. $p_{abc}=E[(x_a-E[x_a])(x_b-E[x_b])(x_c-E[x_c])]$ order-3 or higher tensors describing central moments, or polynomial times Gaussian allowing decodable shape descriptors of arbitrarily high accuracy, and their analogous rotation invariants. Its practical applications could be rotation-invariant features to include shape modulo rotation e.g. for molecular shape descriptors, or for up to rotation object recognition in 2D images/3D scans maybe also for 3D scene understanding, or shape similarity metric allowing inexpensive comparison of objects modulo rotation avoiding costly optimization over rotations.

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12.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-16

Identification and Inference for Algorithmic Frontiers with Selective Labels

Authors:
Yiqi Liu↗Francesca Molinari↗Amilcar Velez↗

arXiv:2606.14977v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: This paper provides identification results to characterize a fairness-accuracy (FA) frontier, and statistical inference tools to test hypotheses and build a confidence set for the FA-frontier, when outcomes are observed only for selected individuals. When the selection process is unrestricted but loss is measured in specific ways, we provide a characterization of the sharp identification region of the FA-frontier. Under an assumption of unconfoundedness conditional on observables (and unrestricted loss functions), we obtain point identification and propose a debiased machine learning estimator, derive its asymptotic distribution, and show how this can be used to carry out inference for the FA-frontier. In work in progress, we extend the partial identification results to a broader class of loss functions.

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13.
arXiv (math.PR) 2026-06-11

Consensus on Dynamic Stochastic Block Models: Fast Convergence and Phase Transitions

Authors:
Haoyu Wang↗Jiaheng Wei↗Zhenyuan Zhang↗

arXiv:2209.03999v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We introduce two models of consensus following a majority rule on time-evolving stochastic block models (SBM), in which the network evolution is Markovian or non-Markovian. Under the majority rule, in each round, each agent simultaneously updates their opinion according to the majority of their neighbors. Our network has a community structure and randomly evolves with time. In contrast to the classic setting, the dynamics is not purely deterministic, and reflects the structure of SBM by resampling the connections at each step, making agents with the same opinion more likely to connect than those with different opinions. In the Markovian model, connections between agents are resampled at each step according to the SBM law and each agent updates their opinion via the majority rule. We prove a power-of-one type result, i.e., any initial bias leads to a non-trivial advantage of winning in the end, uniformly in the size of the network. In the non-Markovian model, a connection between two agents is resampled according to the SBM law only when at least one of them changes opinion and is otherwise kept the same. We identify the phase-transition threshold, up to the second-order leading term, between halting and fast convergence to consensus. We also give sufficient initial-lead conditions for consensus to occur within one, two, or three rounds.

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

The Value Axis: Language Models Encode Whether They're on the Right Track

Authors:
Nick Jiang↗Isaac Kauvar↗Jack Lindsey↗

We investigate whether language models internally track the value of their current trajectory, defined as the likelihood that their ongoing strategy will achieve their goals. Using synthetic, in-context reinforcement learning data, we construct a "value" axis for Qwen3-8B. We find that activations along this axis distinguish between high vs. low verbalized confidence, rollouts without and with backtracking, and correct vs. corrupted code. Steering towards high value causally suppresses self-correction and reduces explanatory verbosity, while steering towards low value induces backtracking and exploration. We demonstrate that direct preference optimization (DPO) can increase the internal value of rewarded behaviors (e.g. use a certain word), causing the model to act more confidently after exhibiting them. Finally, we apply the value axis to study in-the-wild settings. For example, we find that Qwen assigns low value to politically sensitive chat queries after post-training and that supervised fine-tuning increases internal confidence within the training domain. Our results suggest that language models linearly encode an estimate of expected goal success that modulates their confidence in pursuing a direction.

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15.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-19

Enhancing Graph Neural Networks Using Proximity Graphs for Dust Source Emission Forecasting

Authors:
Maryam Sanisales↗Zahed Rahmati↗Ali Darvishi Boloorani↗Ali Vefghi↗

arXiv:2606.19825v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Accurate prediction of dust source emissions is critical for mitigating the significant environmental and health hazards posed by dust storms. Traditional forecasting methods often struggle to capture the complex spatiotemporal dynamics of these phenomena. In this paper, we demonstrate that proximity graphs enable Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) to effectively model the intricate spatial and temporal relationships between data points. Specifically, we use proximity graphs–such as Delaunay triangulation, Gabriel graph, k-Nearest Neighbor graph, and Yao graph–as the input for GNNs (including GraphSAGE, Graph Convolutional Networks, and Graph Attention Networks) to perform message passing. Our approach highlights the effectiveness of integrating proximity graphs with GNNs for robust and accurate dust source forecasting. To emphasize the importance of proximity graph representations, we compare our method against GNNs using random graphs for message passing. The results show that GNNs with proximity graphs significantly outperform those with random graphs and are also far superior to Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model in dust source emission forecasting.

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16.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-24

A Quantum Non-Gaussianity Criterion Based on Photon Correlations $g^{(2)}$ and $g^{(3)}$

Authors:
Christoph Hotter↗Clara Henke↗Cornelis Jacobus van Diepen↗Peter Lodahl↗Anders S{\o}ndberg S{\o}rensen↗

arXiv:2511.08488v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Quantum non-Gaussian states, which cannot be written as mixtures of Gaussian states, are necessary to achieve a quantum advantage in continuous variable systems. They represent an important benchmark for the realization of an advanced quantum light source, as they cannot be made by simple means such as displacement and squeezing. We introduce an attenuation-resistant sufficient criterion for quantum non-Gaussian states based on the second- and third-order correlation functions, $g^{(2)}$ and $g^{(3)}$. The general non-linear bound for classical mixtures of Gaussian states is $\sqrt{g^{(3)}} + 3 \sqrt{g^{(2)}} \geq 2$. Any mixture of Gaussian states must fulfill this inequality, thus, the violation of it represents a direct confirmation of quantum non-Gaussianity. We experimentally show the non-Gaussianity of the state produced by a quantum dot single-photon source, where we obtain $\sqrt{g^{(3)}} + 3 \sqrt{g^{(2)}} = 0.174 (13)$, which represents a statistical significance of more than $100$ standard deviations.

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

StepGuard: Guarding Web Navigation via Single-Step Calibration

Authors:
Zhihao Cui↗Yuchen Zhang↗Xiyang Sun↗Yaxiong Wang↗Li Zhu↗Jinpeng Hu↗Liu Liu↗Mengjia Li↗Yujiao Wu↗

arXiv:2606.17871v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Web navigation requires agents to follow natural language goals, interact with web pages, and produce accurate answers. While recent advances leverage vision-language models and reinforcement learning, existing methods still suffer from single-step fragility due to reward misalignment and error propagation. To tackle the reward entanglement, we design Dynamic Dual-Policy Optimization (DDPO), which dynamically switches between a navigation-first mode for exploration and an answer-first mode for question-answering to mitigate reward conflict. To calibrate the single-step error, we propose Confidence-Guided Adaptive Navigation Reflection (CANR), a mechanism that estimates per-step confidence, triggers reflection only when necessary, and uses contrastive rewards to encourage self-correction to calibrate the single-step inaccuracy. With the above as the main components, we finally develop our StepGuard, a new framework of Guarding Web Navigation via Single-Step Calibration. Experiments demonstrate that our approach significantly improves navigation and answer accuracy, setting new state-of-the-art performance on standard web navigation benchmarks.

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18.
PLOS Medicine 2026-06-23

Comparisons of core component delivery in cardiac rehabilitation programs by country income classification and decade based on the 2025 Global Audit Update: A survey study

Authors:
Gabriela Lima de Melo Ghisi↗

by Gabriela Lima de Melo Ghisi, Rachael P. Carson, Karam Turk Adawi, Rongjing Ding, Warner M. Mampuya, Mariya P. Jiandani, Jimena Martinez, Monserrat Cruz Rivero, Claudia V. Anchique, Dinah L. van Schalkwijk, Jonathan Gallagher, Buket Akinci, Dion Candelaria, Jirapa Champaiboon, Daniel F. Quesada-Chaves, Tone M. Norekvål, Iwona Szadkowska, Borut Jug, Evangelia Kouidi, Marta Supervia, Won-Seok Kim, Chamila Mettananda, Lilian Mbau, Gulsim T. Aimakova, Sherry L. Grace, on behalf of the ICCPR Global Cardiac Rehabilitation Audit Update Investigators Background Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains a leading global health burden. Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is essential to reducing morbidity and improving patient outcomes. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, CR delivery worldwide has evolved, yet these changes have not been systematically charactemkjrized. The objective of this study was to characterize globally: (1) the delivery of core CR components, including risk factors assessed, patient education practices, and program resources; (2) differences in these elements by country income classification and relative to the initial 2016 Global CR Audit. Methods and findings A cross-sectional Audit update was conducted. Program-level data were collected from May 1st to September 1st 2025 using a REDCap survey adapted from previous Audits. Eligible respondents were leads of phase II/post-discharge CR programs providing at least an initial assessment, structured aerobic exercise, and ≥1 additional core component. ICCPR associations and local leaders supported program identification. Main outcomes were core components delivered (10 assessed), risk factors assessed (14 assessed), patient education dose (hours/patient/program), and program resources (17 assessed). Generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) tested differences by income classification and (when applicable) changes since 2016. Of 7,025 programs identified globally, 1,505 (62% median country response rate) initiated a survey from 90/113 (80%) countries with CR. The median number of core components offered was 8/program (p25, p75 = 6, 10), with upper-middle income countries offering significantly more components overall (median = 9), and also high-income countries offering more than low-income countries (8 versus 6, p 

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19.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-17

Discrete Autoregressive Transformer for Generative Mechanism Synthesis

Authors:
Anar Nurizada↗Anurag Purwar↗

arXiv:2606.17409v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Planar path synthesis requires mechanisms whose coupler curves match a prescribed trajectory; the mapping from curve to linkage is inherently one-to-many across four-, six-, and eight-bar topologies. We address this design problem with simulation-grounded evaluation on a curated corpus of over one million mechanisms, reporting Chamfer distance and dynamic time warping after forward kinematics and geometric alignment. We formulate synthesis as conditional autoregressive sequence modeling: joint coordinates are uniformly quantized to tokens and generated by a decoder-only transformer with a variational-autoencoder (VAE) latent of the target curve and an explicit mechanism-type token. Training combines token cross-entropy with a Gaussian-smoothed bin auxiliary loss that respects ordinal structure among bins. At inference, a bounded latent-noise schedule decodes all mechanism types at each noise level; we retain the top five candidates by geometric error, yielding diverse accurate families without dataset lookup. On held-out tests, aggregate mean Chamfer distance is $0.0132$ and mean dynamic time warping is $0.153$; a latent $k$-nearest-neighbor baseline that conditions on training-set neighbor latents in VAE space achieves matched-topology mean Chamfer distance $0.0071$ and mean dynamic time warping $0.117$ using the same decoder.

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20.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-17

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

Authors:
Shengli Zhang↗Deen Ma↗Zibin Lin↗Taotao Wang↗

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.

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21.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-24

Ultra-Low-Rate Information Reconciliation: Repetition Coding or Dedicated Codes?

Authors:
Erdem Eray Cil↗Laurent Schmalen↗

arXiv:2606.23726v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We compare repetition-based ultra-low-rate information reconciliation with dedicated ultra-low-rate codes for CV-QKD. Repetition coding offers a favorable performance-complexity trade-off, incurring only a moderate error-rate penalty while reducing decoding complexity by $2\times$, making it attractive for implementation-constrained systems.

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22.
Nature (Science) 2026-06-09

People are turning to AI chatbots to plug gaps in health information

Authors:
Moritz Gerstung↗

A systematic assessment of health-related queries to a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence highlights shortfalls in health-care provision and the responsibilities of AI companies. A systematic assessment of health-related queries to a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence highlights shortfalls in health-care provision and the responsibilities of AI companies.

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23.
arXiv (CS.CV) 2026-06-24

Quantifying mandibular positioning error and simulated temporomandibular joint-space changes in patient-specific occlusal splints

Authors:
Agnieszka Anna Tomaka↗Krzysztof Domino↗Micha{\l} Tarnawski↗Dariusz Pojda↗

Patient-specific occlusal positioning splints can be regarded as physical realisations of planned mandibular transformations. However, the achieved mandibular pose may differ from the planned one because of acquisition, registration, fabrication, and positioning errors. This study presents a transformation-based biomedical engineering framework for quantifying mandibular positioning accuracy and propagating the resulting error to a simulated temporomandibular joint configuration. Multimodal 3D data, including CBCT, facial motion acquisition, and dental scans, were integrated in a common coordinate system. Positioning splints corresponding to selected mandibular poses were designed and fabricated, and their realised positions were evaluated using repeated scans of plaster models. Discrepancies between planned and achieved positions were represented as rigid-body error transformations and analysed in SE(3), together with surface-distance metrics. The estimated transformations were propagated to CBCT-derived TMJ structures to quantify changes in condyle-fossa distance maps. The results demonstrate a systematic translational component and anisotropic variability of mandibular positioning error, with measurable propagation to simulated TMJ-space changes. The proposed framework provides an objective method for documenting planned and achieved mandibular configurations and for analysing positioning uncertainty in patient-specific splint workflows.

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

Progressive Alignment Objectives for Aligner-Encoder based ASR

Authors:
Jaeyong Lee↗Masato Mimura↗Takafumi Moriya↗

Aligner-Encoders are recently proposed seq2seq end-to-end ASR models that replace decoder attention by predicting the uth token directly from the u-th encoder position, so the encoder must learn the alignment internally without cross-attention or a transducer lattice. In practice, this alignment often forms abruptly in the upper layers, making training sensitive and brittle on long utterances. We propose InterAligner, which adds an intermediate Aligner objective so alignment can form progressively across depth, together with an intermediate CTC loss (InterCTC) to stabilize optimization. On LibriSpeech with a 17-layer Conformer, a final-only Aligner reaches 5.0/7.8 WER (test-clean/other). InterCTC improves to 3.4/6.0, and InterAligner further reduces WER to 3.1/5.6 with the largest gains on long utterances.

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25.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-12

Matrix phase-space representations for quantum symmetries

Authors:
Peter D. Drummond↗Alexander S. Dellios↗Margaret D. Reid↗

arXiv:2606.12769v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We introduce a general phase-space representation that includes global quantum symmetries in the basis expansion. This method, called matrix phase-space, projects the basis onto a reduced Hilbert space, which can greatly reduce sampling errors of many-body quantum simulations and unifies several previous phase-space methods. The purpose of this paper is to provide detailed proofs of basic theorems and operator identities. We also treat several different types of symmetries. To illustrate the benefits of matrix phase-space methods, we give a detailed derivation of a recent application to the topical problem of verifying the outputs of Gaussian boson sampling (GBS) quantum computers with photon number resolving detectors. This has exponential complexity, and using parity symmetry reduces sampling errors by very large factors relative to earlier methods.

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