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01.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-11

Magneto-Optical Trapping of a Metal Hydride Molecule

arXiv:2512.22350v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We demonstrate a three-dimensional magneto-optical trap (MOT) of a metal hydride molecule, CaH. We are able to scatter $\sim$$10^{4}$ photons with vibrational loss covered up to vibrational quantum number $\nu=2$. This allows us to laser slow the molecular beam near zero velocity with a "white-light" technique and subsequently load it into a radio-frequency MOT. The MOT contains $230(40)$ molecules, limited by beam source characteristics and predissociative loss of CaH. The temperature of the MOT is below one millikelvin. The predissociative loss mechanism could, in turn, facilitate controlled dissociation of the molecule, offering a possible route to optical trapping of hydrogen atoms for precision spectroscopy.

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

Atlas: Orchestrating Heterogeneous Models and Tools for Multi-Domain Complex Reasoning

The integration of large language models (LLMs) with external tools has significantly expanded the capabilities of AI agents. However, as the diversity of both LLMs and tools increases, selecting the optimal model-tool combination becomes a high-dimensional optimization challenge. Existing approaches often rely on a single model or fixed tool-calling logic, failing to exploit the performance variations across heterogeneous model-tool pairs. In this paper, we present ATLAS (Adaptive Tool-LLM Alignment and Synergistic Invocation), a dual-path framework for dynamic tool usage in cross-domain complex reasoning. ATLAS operates via a dual-path approach: (1) training-free cluster-based routing that exploits empirical priors for domain-specific alignment, and (2) RL-based multi-step routing that explores autonomous trajectories for out-of-distribution generalization. Extensive experiments across 15 benchmarks demonstrate that our method outperforms closed-source models like GPT-4o, surpassing existing routing methods on both in-distribution (+10.1%) and out-of-distribution (+13.1%) tasks. Furthermore, our framework shows significant gains in visual reasoning by orchestrating specialized multi-modal tools.

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

Multimodal Concept Bottleneck Models

arXiv:2606.19882v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Concept Bottleneck Models (CBMs) enhance the interpretability of deep learning networks by aligning the features extracted from images with natural concepts. However, existing CBMs are constrained in their ability to generalize beyond a fixed set of predefined classes and the risk of non-concept information leakage, where predictive signals outside the intended concepts are inadvertently exploited. In this paper, we propose Multimodal Concept Bottleneck Model (MM-CBM) to address these issues and extend CBMs into CLIP. MM-CBM utilizes dual Concept Bottleneck Layers (CBLs) to align both the image and text embeddings into interpretable features. This allows us to perform new vision tasks like zero-shot classification or image retrieval in an interpretable way. Compared to existing methods, MM-CBM achieves up to 51.26% accuracy improvement on average across four standard benchmarks. Our method maintains high accuracy, staying within ~5% of black-box performance while offering greater interpretability.

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

Reduced basis algorithm for solving nonlinear differential equations on quantum computers

arXiv:2606.13457v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: As quantum computing moves toward scientific computing applications, nonlinear differential equations remain a central challenge since quantum evolution is intrinsically linear. In this work, we introduce a reduced basis algorithm (RBA) for polynomial nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODEs) and spatially discretized partial differential equations (PDEs). After time discretization, the method composes the resulting polynomial update map over $m$ timesteps, identifies the reduced monomial basis appearing in this composed map, and constructs a linear RBA operator whose action recovers the exact $m$-timestep nonlinear dynamics. Thus, at the level of the chosen discrete update rule, the method introduces no additional approximation error beyond the time discretization error. The qubit number requirement is governed by the size of the reduced monomial basis. For an $n$-dimensional polynomial ODE system of degree $p>1$, the lifted register requires at most $q_m^{\mathrm{ODE}} = O(nm\log p)$ qubits in the full basis scenario. For PDEs discretized on $N^D$ grid points, a locality-based construction requires at most $q_m^{\mathrm{PDE}} = O(D\log N + n m^{D+1}\log p)$ qubits. Hence, the dependence on the grid size remains logarithmic, while the nonlinear overhead is controlled by local reduced basis size. The main computational burden is moved from the quantum computer to a classical preprocessing step, where the reduced monomial basis and RBA operator are constructed for the chosen timestep window. Through numerical tests on the Lorenz system and the one-dimensional Burgers equation, we verify that the RBA reproduces the corresponding discrete time nonlinear dynamics exactly, while exposing the trade-off between timestep composition, reduced basis growth, and locality.

05.
arXiv (CS.CL) 2026-06-25

The Generalization Spectrum: A Chromatographic Approach to Evaluating Learning Algorithms

Traditional evaluations measure a learning algorithm's final performance on an i.i.d. test set, reducing learning to a single aggregate score. This approach obscures a fundamental question: to what extent does learning from a specific example generalize to others? Such per-sample generalization, akin to learning by analogy in human cognition, captures how far the knowledge extracted from one example can transfer, yet remains invisible to standard benchmarks. We introduce the Generalization Spectrum, an evaluation framework designed to expose this hidden dimension. For each training example, we construct a controlled suite of test variants arranged by increasing transfer distance, from exact recall to implementation transfer across languages, context transfer under complete narrative re-framing, category-matched in-domain problems, and an unpaired baseline. By tracking performance across these distances, we reveal not just whether an algorithm learns, but how far that learning extends. We instantiate this framework on competitive programming, using a selection-and-synthesis pipeline seeded with recent problems to mitigate contamination. We first compare three canonical learning paradigms under matched memorization. RL converts memorization into near-transfer more efficiently than SFT-family baselines, while ICL exhibits strong but correspondence-dependent transfer. We then use the Spectrum to diagnose within-family variants. The resulting profiles show that local gains need not expand the generalization radius: abstractions and hints mainly lift local transfer, RFT preserves a stronger far-transfer tail than reference SFT, and self-distillation or hint-assisted RL can reduce far transfer even when local transfer or optimization improves.

06.
medRxiv (Medicine) 2026-06-22

Demographic Calibration Gaps in Breast Cancer Risk Prediction: Introducing the Demographic Calibration Gap Score

Authors:

ABSTRACT: Most breast cancer prediction studies skip calibration reporting entirely. Fewer still examine calibration by demographic subgroup. Predicted probabilities that are systematically off for specific racial or gender groups produce biased clinical decisions, and aggregate statistics will not catch that. Objective: To introduce the Demographic Calibration Gap Score (DCGS), a metric that measures how much calibration error varies across demographic subgroups, and to show how it performs across five classifiers, four calibration conditions, and two datasets. Methods: Five classifiers were trained on the Wisconsin Diagnostic Breast Cancer dataset (n=569) and evaluated on a breast cancer cohort from MIMIC-IV (n=1,316). Three global calibration methods were applied: no calibration, Platt scaling, and isotonic regression. A fourth condition, subgroup-targeted Platt scaling, was applied to the MIMIC cohort. DCGS was computed as across racial and gender subgroups, with 95% bootstrap confidence intervals. Conformal prediction coverage and Demographic Coverage Gap (DCG) were reported. Results: On Wisconsin, all five models achieved AUROC above 0.98 and ECE below 0.12. Performance fell sharply on the MIMIC external cohort: AUROC dropped to 0.45-0.57 for base and globally calibrated variants, confirming distributional shift. DCGS exceeded the 0.05 clinical significance threshold in 28 of 40 model-calibration combinations on the race axis. Neither global Platt nor isotonic calibration reliably reduced DCGS below that threshold. Conformal coverage collapsed to roughly 25% on MIMIC, and racial DCG exceeded 0.15 for all 20 model-variant combinations. Conclusions: Reducing population-level ECE through global recalibration does not reliably close demographic calibration gaps. DCGS gives researchers a direct, standardized way to detect and report those disparities. Code and the DCGS computation library are released as open-source Python under the MIT License.

07.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-12

Enhanced Low-Density Region Exploration in Classifier-Guided Diffusion Models Through Modified Reverse Diffusion Sampling

arXiv:2606.13347v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Diffusion models have emerged as state-of-the-art generative models for high-fidelity image synthesis, particularly in their classifier-free guided and classifier-guided forms. However, standard classifier guidance concentrates probability mass around high-density class mean, leading to poor coverage of rare samples in the tails of the class-conditional distributions. Recent work on diffusion-based tail sampling mitigates this by training an additional low-density-seeking classifier with a synthetic-vs-real discriminator, at the cost of additional networks and training. In parallel, a number of samplers and distillation techniques accelerate or refine diffusion sampling, but do not explicitly address long-tail coverage. We propose a purely sampling-time, density-aware extension of classifier-guided conditional diffusion model that targets low-density regions without any additional training. We have applied guidance at noisy images not on predicted noise like most diffusion models. Starting from a pretrained conditional diffusion model and classifier on ImageNet, we modify the guided reverse dynamics by steering trajectories toward low-confidence regions via the modified classifier gradient, and at each time step, we also guide the sampling process toward the predicted real image. 1st guidance helps explore low-probability samples, and 2nd guidance helps to generate samples to be close to the real data manifold. The proposed sampler consistently improves ADM model recall at 64x64 resolution while maintaining a comparable FID, and with a 256x256 ADM model, we showed the results visually with different combinations of both guidance. We also showed that standard ADM classifier guidance, combined with predicted real image guidance, helps generate high perceptual quality samples with a 256x256 ADM model on ImageNet.

08.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-15

Electromagnetic Wightman functions and vacuum densities for a brane intersecting the AdS boundary

arXiv:2604.17583v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We investigate the combined effects of a brane intersecting the AdS boundary and background gravitational field on the local characteristics of the electromagnetic vacuum. Two types of boundary conditions on the brane are considered, which are higher-dimensional generalizations of the perfect electric (PEC) and perfect magnetic (PMC) boundary conditions in Maxwell's electrodynamics. The brane-induced contributions to the Wightman functions of the vector potential and field tensor are explicitly extracted. Simple expressions in terms of elementary functions are provided. The behavior of the vacuum expectation values (VEVs) is mimicked by a scalar field with a negative effective mass squared determined by the radius of the AdS spacetime. The expectation values of the electric and magnetic fields squares and of the energy-momentum tensor are investigated as local characteristics of the vacuum state. The brane-induced contributions to these VEVs have opposite signs for the PEC and PMC conditions. For the PMC condition, this contribution is negative for the electric field squared and positive for the magnetic field squared. The VEV of the energy-momentum tensor has a nonzero off-diagonal component. The brane-induced vacuum energy density is positive for PMC condition, whereas the normal and parallel stresses change sign as functions of the distance from the brane. Unlike the problem involving a planar boundary in the Minkowski bulk, the vacuum energy-momentum tensor does not vanish in (3+1)-dimensional AdS spacetime.

09.
medRxiv (Medicine) 2026-06-22

Cumulative Metabolic Exposure to Hyperglycemia and Risk of Cardiovascular and Limb Events in Peripheral Artery Disease

Background: Although diabetes is a potent risk factor for the development of peripheral artery disease (PAD), the effect of cumulative metabolic exposure to hyperglycemia on risk of cardiovascular or limb events in patients with PAD remains unclear. Methods: The Peripheral Artery Disease: Long-term Survival (PEARLS) is a longitudinal registry of Veterans with newly diagnosed PAD identified using a natural language processing approach. Included patients had ankle brachial index [≤]0.9 or toe brachial index [≤]0.7, and no history of lower extremity revascularization or major amputation. Among patients with diabetes in this cohort, we assessed cumulative exposure to hyperglycema based on a 24-month rolling average of hemoglobin (Hgb) A1c values, categorized as [≤]7%, >7% to [≤]8%, and >8%. Multivariable Cox regression models evaluated the association between categories of HgbA1c, modeled as a time-varying exposure, and risk of cardiovascular (CV: myocardial infarction or stroke) and limb (chronic limb threatening ischemia [CLTI] or major amputation) events. Results: Among 45,109 patients with new diagnosis of PAD and pre-existing diabetes, the mean HgbA1c at baseline was 7.5%, with nearly one-third (30.4%) having HgbA1c >8%. The mean age was 70.4 years, 19.8% were Black and 4% were Hispanic. Patients with baseline HgbA1c >8% were younger and compared to those with HgbA1c [≤]7%, more likely to have coronary disease, kidney disease, and obesity. Over a median follow up of 4.2 years, 8,306 (18.4%) patients experienced a CV event, and 8,199 (18.2%) experienced a limb event. The adjusted association between HgbA1c and hazard of CV events was 12% higher in patients exposed to HgbA1c >7% to [≤]8% (HR 1.12; 95%CI: 1.05-1.18) and 38% higher in those exposed to HgbA1c >8% (HR 1.38; 95%CI: 1.30-1.46), compared to HgbA1c 7% to [≤]8% (HR 1.20; 95%CI: 1.13-1.28) and HgbA1c >8% (HR 1.60; 95%CI: 1.51-1.70), respectively when compared to HgbA1c [≤]7%. These findings were consistent in subgroups based on age and severity of PAD. Conclusions: Among diabetic patients with PAD, cumulatiave metabolic exposure to hyperglycemia is associated with a markedly increased risk of clinical events, especially limb events.

10.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-19

On the Variance of Temporal Difference Learning and its Reduction Using Control Variates

arXiv:2606.20357v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We analyze the variance of temporal difference (TD) learning using the phased setting with tabular representation, and show that one of the mechanisms behind its ability to reduce variance is by effectively aggregating over a larger number of independent trajectories. Based on this insight, we demonstrate that (1) the variance of TD is asymptotically bounded from above by Monte Carlo (MC) estimators, and (2) shorter horizon updates incurs less variance for a fixed number of samples. Beyond TD, we show that Direct Advantage Estimation (DAE), a method for estimating the advantage function, can be seen as a type of regression-adjusted control variate, which achieves a tighter bound on the variance compared to TD in the large-sample limit. Finally, we numerically illustrate the behaviors of these estimators with carefully designed environments.

11.
Nature (Science) 2026-06-24

Role of methanesulfonic acid in atmospheric particle nucleation and growth

Authors:

Dimethylsulfide (DMS; CH3SCH3) from marine phytoplankton is a major source of atmospheric sulfur 1. Its oxidation products include sulfuric acid (SA; H2SO4) and methanesulfonic acid (MSA; CH3SO3H), which has a higher yield than SA below 10 °C 2. Whereas SA is known to drive the formation of new particles 3, which may subsequently grow and act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), the role of MSA remains unclear 4. Here, in experiments performed under atmospheric conditions at the CERN CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets) chamber, we show that MSA nucleates together with ammonia (NH3) below −10 °C, at rates comparable to SA-NH3. Moreover, MSA and SA nucleate synergistically below −10 °C, forming multi-acid molecular clusters with NH3. Even at ultra-low NH3 levels, MSA drives particle growth at or near the kinetic limit below 9 °C and above 40 % relative humidity (RH). Since MSA and SA generally coexist at similar concentrations in cool marine regions, our findings indicate that nucleation rates may be accelerated up to tenfold and growth rates up to twofold compared with SA-NH3 alone. Our global model simulations indicate that MSA can enhance CCN concentrations, especially in polar regions. We propose that MSA might be an important driver of biogenic particles in cool, pristine marine regions of both the present-day and pre-industrial atmospheres, and yet is unaccounted for in global climate models 5.

13.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-25

TokenMinds: Pretrained User Tokens and Embeddings for User Understanding in Large Recommender Systems

arXiv:2606.25147v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: User modeling in industrial recommender systems typically produces dense embeddings, which suffer from representational constraints inherent to fixed-dimensional vectors. An emerging alternative for discrete user representation – using LLMs to generate text-based user tokens – captures topical co-occurrences rather than deep sequential behavior dynamics and produces outputs that are difficult to ground to item attributes. Meanwhile, Semantic ID (SID) based item tokenization has proven effective for improving generalization in generative recommendation, yet discrete SID-based representations for users remain largely unexplored. We propose TokenMinds, an industrial-scale system that extends the PLUM framework from item retrieval to user modeling, generating both discrete SID-based user tokens and dense user embeddings via an encoder-decoder architecture adapted from pre-trained LLMs. This dual-output design provides the complementary benefits of discrete, semantically grounded user representations while maintaining compatibility with existing downstream models that rely on dense embeddings. Additionally, the shared SID vocabulary naturally extends to cross-scenario modeling: by unifying long-form and short-form video behaviors into a single model, we substantially reduce training and serving costs. We validate TokenMinds through extensive offline experiments and live launches on multiple YouTube surfaces, served on full user traffic (billions of users) via an asynchronous infrastructure that decouples representation generation from downstream scoring. Focusing on ranking as the primary downstream use case, our results confirm the practical viability of SID-based user tokens at industrial scale and demonstrate that tokens and dense embeddings provide complementary value across different production ranking systems.

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

Combining Retrieval-Augmented Text Generation with LLMs for Reading Content Recommendations

arXiv:2606.14817v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: This work presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of a system for generating personalized reading content using Large Language Models (LLMs) combined with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). The proposed architecture consists of four modules: Input, RAG, Generation, and Judging and enables users to specify both a question and a target reading content complexity. RAG is employed to retrieve relevant information from the Internet, enriching and grounding the content produced by three modern LLMs: Meta LLaMA 4 Scout, LLaMA 3.1 8B Instant, and Google Gemma2 9B. Reading materials are generated using three prompting strategies (Chain-of-Thought, zero-shot, and few-shot), and the LLM-as-a-Judge module automatically evaluates answer quality and alignment with the desired readability level. Experimental results show that RAG consistently improves system performance across all models and prompting techniques, increasing relevance and particularly groundedness by up to 26-35 percentage points. Overall, the findings demonstrate that the RAG-augmented architecture effectively produces reading content tailored to user queries and desired textual complexity.

15.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-18

Deep Learning-Driven Inverse Design of Doherty Power Amplifiers Using Pixelated Combiners and Dual-State Impedance Synthesis

arXiv:2606.18395v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The output combiner of a Doherty power amplifier (PA) integrates load modulation, impedance matching, and phase compensation within a single network, making its design and synthesis highly challenging. In this paper, we propose a three-port Doherty combiner design methodology that combines deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs), pixelated layout representations, and genetic algorithms (GA) with dual-state impedance synthesis to address both peak and back-off power conditions. As a proof of concept, two GaN HEMT Doherty PA prototypes incorporating three-port pixelated combiners are designed and fabricated. Both prototypes achieve a measured saturated output power exceeding 44.2 dBm with peak drain efficiency above 71.2% within 2.6-2.8 GHz. Furthermore, a drain efficiency as high as 64% is measured at the 6-dB back-off level. After applying digital predistortion, each prototype achieves an adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR) better than -51.3 dBc.

16.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-19

Information Lattice Learning as Probabilistic Graphical Model Structure Learning

arXiv:2606.19366v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Information lattice learning (ILL) learns interpretable rules of a signal by alternately projecting the signal onto a partition lattice that encodes a hierarchy of abstractions and lifting selected rules back to the signal domain. When the signal is a probability mass function, we show the probabilistic rules learned by ILL admit a natural probabilistic graphical model (PGM) interpretation and develop this interpretation in detail. A partition in ILL induces a deterministic quotient variable, and a rule is the marginal law of that quotient variable. A rule set is therefore a collection of marginal constraints over interpretable abstractions. General lifting is the feasible family of all joint distributions satisfying those constraints, while special lifting chooses a maximum-ignorance reconstruction, implemented in ILL by an L2 uniformity principle closely related to maximum entropy. Under a Shannon-entropy lifting, the same constraints yield a log-linear factor graph whose factors are indexed by learned abstractions. The information lattice itself, however, is not a Bayesian network: its edges encode refinement and coarsening of abstractions, not conditional dependence. Thus ILL is best viewed as structure learning for interpretable constraint-based factor graphs over quotient variables. This view clarifies how ILL relates to graphical models and maximum entropy models, while suggesting new directions for inference, identifiability, and hybrid symbolic-probabilistic learning.

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

Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen correlations between mechanical oscillators revealed through SU(1,1) interferometry

arXiv:2606.18202v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Quantum correlations are essential for achieving quantum advantage in computing, communication and sensing. Moreover, their observation challenges and constrains our fundamental understanding of nature. Mechanical oscillators in the quantum regime provide an appealing platform for preparing and investigating quantum correlations at macroscopic scales. Despite substantial progress, however, continuous-variable quantum correlations stronger than entanglement have not yet been observed in this macroscopic regime. Here, we report the experimental observation of continuous-variable Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen correlations between two spatially-separated mechanical oscillators with an effective mass of $\sim 16 \,\mu g$ each. This is achieved by coupling them to a superconducting qubit which allows for engineering a two-mode squeezing interaction when parametrically driven. Crucially, we show that this interaction can be used to witness quantum correlations through the realization of a mechanical SU(1,1) interferometer. Our results expand the toolbox of operations in circuit quantum acoustodynamics and demonstrate that quantum correlations stronger than entanglement can also be observed in macroscopic systems, thereby shedding light on the boundary between quantum and classical regimes.

18.
arXiv (CS.CL) 2026-06-19

Clusters are All You Need: Pre-Training the Tsetlin Machine with Semantic Clusters from Language Models for Interpretability

Pre-trained language models such as BERT achieve strong text classification performance but lack transparency, limiting their use in high-stakes settings. The Tsetlin Machine (TM) offers fully interpretable, clause-based reasoning but captures little semantic information, and prior attempts to bridge the two rely on static word embeddings that miss contextual meaning. We propose a semantic pre-training framework that transfers knowledge from a pre-trained language model into a TM without using embeddings. Text samples are grouped into semantically coherent clusters with K-means or Top2Vec, and the resulting cluster-sample pairs pre-train a non-negated TM with enhanced Type I feedback. The TM thereby learns interpretable semantic keywords that are fine-tuned on downstream tasks. Across five datasets, our method substantially outperforms vanilla and embedding-based TMs and reaches performance competitive with BERT while remaining interpretable.

19.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-18

Something from Nothing: Data Augmentation for Robust Severity Level Estimation of Dysarthric Speech

arXiv:2603.15988v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Dysarthric speech quality assessment (DSQA) is critical for clinical diagnostics and inclusive speech technologies. However, subjective evaluation is costly and difficult to scale, and the scarcity of labeled data limits robust objective modeling. To address this, we propose a three-stage framework that leverages unlabeled dysarthric speech and large-scale typical speech datasets to scale training. A teacher model first generates pseudo-labels for unlabeled samples, followed by weakly supervised pretraining using a label-aware contrastive learning strategy that exposes the model to diverse speakers and acoustic conditions. The pretrained model is then fine-tuned for the downstream DSQA task. Experiments on five unseen datasets spanning multiple etiologies and languages demonstrate the robustness of our approach. Our Whisper-based baseline significantly outperforms SOTA DSQA predictors such as SpICE, and the full framework achieves an average SRCC of 0.761 across unseen test datasets.

20.
bioRxiv (Bioinfo) 2026-06-10

Bias-mitigated microbiome inference refines coronary artery disease signature

Authors:

Roughly half the cells in the human body are microbial, and changes in these communities are increasingly implicated in cardiovascular, metabolic, and oncological diseases. Yet identifying which taxa truly differ in abundance, differential abundance (DA), is distorted by four major sources of bias: loss of total microbial load, taxa measurement efficiencies, arbitrary pseudocounts required to handle pervasive zeros, and contamination which has recently driven retractions. No existing DA method accounts for all four. Here we introduce BootDA, a non-parametric bootstrap-based method that explicitly models each bias source without data transformations, pseudocounts, parametric assumptions, or assuming that most taxa are non-DA. In semi-parametric simulations preserving the sparsity (>70% zeros) and correlation structure of real 16S amplicon data, BootDA achieved the highest sensitivity among tested methods, including ANCOM-BC2, LinDA, MaAsLin 3, and Wilcoxon tests, while controlling the false discovery rate. Performance was retained in low biomass settings when contamination contributed ~50% of counts, and without negative controls, indicating de novo decontamination capability. Applied to a coronary artery disease cohort, BootDA refined the original signature to two co-enriched genera, Klebsiella and Gemmiger, and excluded likely contaminants. BootDA is available as an R package and could generalise to other sparse, high dimensional biological data.

21.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-11

A post-selected quantum model of cosmic acceleration

arXiv:2606.12297v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The origin of cosmic acceleration remains a central problem in cosmology, commonly attributed to a cosmological constant within the $\Lambda$CDM model or to dynamical dark energy. Here, we develop an alternative approach in which acceleration emerges from quantum post-selection, a standard feature of quantum theory that is not usually incorporated into cosmological modelling. While quantum theory admits both pre-selected and post-selected ensembles, quantum cosmological models are almost exclusively formulated in terms of initial conditions. Building on previous work on post-selected quasiclassical dynamics, we construct a minimal predictive cosmological model in which post-selection and coarse-graining generate effective late-time acceleration without introducing a cosmological constant, dark energy, or modifications of general relativity. The resulting expansion history is highly constrained theoretically and depends on at most two parameters beyond standard Friedmann evolution. Confrontation with type Ia supernova and cosmic chronometer data yields statistically competitive fits while naturally avoiding the coincidence problem. The model also reproduces the standard radiation- and matter-dominated behaviour at early times and predicts a present-day jerk parameter significantly different from the $\Lambda$CDM value. These results suggest that cosmic acceleration may arise as a macroscopic quantum cosmological effect rather than from additional cosmological fluids or modified gravitational dynamics.

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

An AI Security Agent for University ACMIS: Multi-Vector Threat Detection and Automated Response

arXiv:2606.08270v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: University Academic Management Information Systems (ACMIS) are high-value targets for a wide spectrum of security threats including brute-force login attacks, payment fraud, privilege escalation, insider data theft, and academic integrity violations. Traditional rule-based intrusion detection systems are inadequate because many malicious activities are structurally indistinguishable from normal operations. This paper presents an AI-based security agent for ACMIS that combines supervised anomaly detection, behavioural analytics, and a natural language processing chatbot for secure password recovery. The agent monitors five operational layers: authentication, authorisation, financial transactions, user behaviour, and system health, and responds through a four-tier risk escalation framework. A modular architecture allows the core engine to be extended to other institutional systems. Experiments on a simulated ACMIS event log dataset of 147,922 sessions demonstrate a threat detection macro-average F1 of 0.966, compared to 0.156 for a rule-based baseline and 0.836 for a sequence-only (LSTM) baseline, with end-to-end critical-tier automated response latency under 1 ms on a single-node prototype. The integrated recovery chatbot achieves 97.1 percent identity verification accuracy and an 87.3 percent mass-reset attack detection rate with zero false positives on legitimate high volume recovery periods.

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

Next-Latent Prediction Transformers Learn Compact World Models

arXiv:2511.05963v4 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Transformers replace recurrence with a memory that grows with sequence length and self-attention that enables ad-hoc lookups over past tokens. Consequently, they lack an inherent incentive to compress history into compact latent states with consistent transition rules. This often leads to learning solutions that generalize poorly. We introduce Next-Latent Prediction (NextLat), which extends standard next-token training with self-supervised predictions in the latent space. Specifically, NextLat trains a transformer to learn latent representations that are predictive of its next latent state given the next token. Theoretically, we show that these latents provably converge towards belief states, compressed information about the history necessary to predict the future. This simple auxiliary objective injects a recurrent inductive bias into transformers while leaving their architecture, parallel training efficiency, and inference unchanged. NextLat effectively encourages transformers to form compact internal world models with coherent belief states and transition dynamics – crucial properties not guaranteed by standard next-token prediction alone. Empirically, across benchmarks in world modeling, reasoning, planning, and language modeling, NextLat demonstrates significant gains over standard next-token prediction and other baselines in downstream accuracy, representation compression, and lookahead planning. Furthermore, NextLat enables variable-length self-speculative decoding, accelerating inference by up to 3.3x in language modeling. NextLat offers a simple yet effective paradigm for learning compact, predictive representations in transformers that generalize better. Our code is available at https://github.com/JaydenTeoh/NextLat.

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

FedSteer: Taming Extreme Gradient Staleness in Federated Learning with Corrective Projections and Caching

arXiv:2606.10124v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Federated learning (FL) is often subject to aggregation variance if clients do not consistently participate in training rounds. While reusing stale model updates from inactive clients is a common technique to reduce this variance, we find that with skewed client participation, the resulting update staleness can become severe enough to destabilize training. To remedy this, we propose FedSteer, a novel method that constructs a gradient subspace from a cache of recent client gradients to serve as a low-dimensional representation of the current optimization landscape. FedSteer projects an active client's true gradient onto this subspace to find a set of optimal coordinates. For an inactive client, FedSteer reuses these coordinates with the now-evolved subspace drifted by other active clients. This process effectively "steers" outdated gradients toward the current global objective. This is complemented by a selective caching strategy that identifies a representative client subset to form the subspace, reducing server memory. Experiments demonstrate that FedSteer significantly outperforms baselines, preventing performance collapse in challenging scenarios while delivering accuracy gains of over 7% in others.

25.
bioRxiv (Bioinfo) 2026-06-18

Structure Bioinformatics of Eight Human ATP Synthase Fo Subunits and Their AlphaFold3-Predicted Water-Soluble QTY Analogs

Human mitochondrial ATP synthase is an essential rotary motor enzyme that produces most of the cellular ATP through oxidative phosphorylation. Its membrane-embedded Fo sector contains highly hydrophobic transmembrane subunits that are challenging to study in aqueous environments without detergents. This study explores whether applying the QTY code can reduce the hydrophobicity of selected ATP synthase Fo subunits while preserving their overall molecular structures. We applied the QTY code to eight human ATP synthase Fo subunits: ATP6, ATP8, ATPK, ATP68, ATPMK, AT5G1, AT5G2, and AT5G3. Hydrophobic amino acids leucine (L), isoleucine (I), valine (V), and phenylalanine (F) in transmembrane regions were systematically replaced with hydrophilic glutamine (Q), threonine (T), and tyrosine (Y). Four native subunits with available CryoEM structures from human ATP synthase (PDB: 8H9S) were superposed with their AlphaFold3-predicted QTY analogs. The native ATP synthase Fo subunits superposed well with their respective QTY analogs. For the CryoEM-native comparisons, RMSD values ranged from 0.565[A] to 2.546[A]. For the AlphaFold3-native comparisons of subunits without CryoEM structures, RMSD values ranged from 0.204[A] to 0.297[A]. Despite substantial QTY substitutions in the transmembrane regions, ranging from 38.89% to 50.79%, the QTY analogs retained similar overall folds, molecular weights, and isoelectric points. Hydrophobic surface analysis showed that the QTY analogs had reduced hydrophobic patches compared with their native counterparts, with average hydrophobicity decreasing from 0.2959 in native proteins to -1.1023 in QTY analogs. These structural bioinformatics studies suggest that the QTY code can be applied to ATP synthase Fo subunits to generate more hydrophilic, potentially water-soluble analogs while preserving overall structural similarity. These results extend the application of the QTY code to the membrane-embedded Fo sector of ATP synthase and provide a foundation for future experimental studies testing whether these QTY analogs can be expressed, purified, and evaluated for assembly or proton-transfer-related functions.