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01.
arXiv (CS.CL) 2026-06-19

DeepSeek-V4: Towards Highly Efficient Million-Token Context Intelligence

We present a preview version of DeepSeek-V4 series, including two strong Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) language models – DeepSeek-V4-Pro with 1.6T parameters (49B activated) and DeepSeek-V4-Flash with 284B parameters (13B activated) – both supporting a context length of one million tokens. DeepSeek-V4 series incorporate several key upgrades in architecture and optimization: (1) a hybrid attention architecture that combines Compressed Sparse Attention (CSA) and Heavily Compressed Attention (HCA) to improve long-context efficiency; (2) Manifold-Constrained Hyper-Connections (mHC) that enhance conventional residual connections; (3) and the Muon optimizer for faster convergence and greater training stability. We pre-train both models on more than 32T diverse and high-quality tokens, followed by a comprehensive post-training pipeline that unlocks and further enhances their capabilities. DeepSeek-V4-Pro-Max, the maximum reasoning effort mode of DeepSeek-V4-Pro, redefines the state-of-the-art for open models, outperforming its predecessors in core tasks. Meanwhile, DeepSeek-V4 series are highly efficient in long-context scenarios. In the one-million-token context setting, DeepSeek-V4-Pro requires only 27% of single-token inference FLOPs and 10% of KV cache compared with DeepSeek-V3.2. This enables us to routinely support one-million-token contexts, thereby making long-horizon tasks and further test-time scaling more feasible. The model checkpoints are available at https://huggingface.co/collections/deepseek-ai/deepseek-v4.

02.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-15

Operator Calculus for Population-Based Optimization: A Mean-Field Convergence Theory

arXiv:2606.14289v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Population-based and distributional optimization methods, from evolution strategies and consensus-based optimization to covariance-matrix adaptation and stochastic gradient methods viewed as distributional dynamics, are widely used for nonconvex or black-box problems, yet their convergence analyses remain fragmented across algorithm-specific techniques. We introduce an operator calculus in which a broad class of such methods, after choosing an appropriate state space and, where necessary, augmenting the state by memory or strategy variables, is described as a composition of three elementary operators (mutation, selection, and recombination) acting on probability measures. Under explicit stability and regularity conditions, the composite operator admits a pre-generator whose continuous-time limit is a transport-reaction-jump (TRJ) PDE that preserves the operator splitting. On this foundation we establish a modular Lyapunov principle. If a state-space Lyapunov function both dissipates under the full generator and controls the relevant search-space gauges, then the state-space Lyapunov functional and the induced search errors decay exponentially. The additive generator structure allows dissipation estimates to be assembled operator by operator, providing a toolkit for certifying convergence of composite mean-field algorithms.

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

Hybrid ANN-SNN Pipeline with Local Plasticity

arXiv:2606.20151v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: This work proposes a hybrid ANN-SNN pipeline that effectively leverages the rich embeddings of pretrained artificial neural networks (ANNs) to enable high-performance spiking neural networks (SNNs). The architecture couples a pretrained EfficientNet encoder with a CoLaNET spiking classifier. We convert the encoder's activations into spike trains via rate-coding and train the subsequent SNN classifier using local, biologically inspired learning rules, bypassing end-to-end gradient propagation. This approach achieves 99.09% accuracy on a 64-class ImageNet benchmark, demonstrating performance on par with conventional deep networks. The work presents a biologically plausible and efficient framework for adapting powerful pretrained encoders to downstream spiking neural network tasks.

04.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-11

Restless bandits with imperfect binary feedback: PCL-indexability analysis and computation

arXiv:2606.11192v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We study restless bandits with binary latent states and imperfect binary feedback, motivated by opportunistic spectrum access with sensing errors. For the associated belief-state model, we develop a partial conservation laws (PCL)-based analytical and computational framework for establishing indexability and evaluating the Whittle index, building on a verification theorem for real-state discounted restless bandits. The framework analyzes the stochastic dynamics via an associated deterministic skeleton, renewal decompositions, and combinatorics on words. It yields tractable expressions for discounted reward and resource metrics in several threshold regimes, enabling full verification of the PCL-indexability conditions there. For the remaining regime, where a complete analytic verification is not achieved in this paper, we derive efficient numerical schemes for computing the relevant marginal metrics and the marginal productivity (MP) index, which equals the Whittle index when those conditions hold. Extensive computational experiments provide strong evidence that these conditions also hold in that regime across broad parameter ranges and without the stringent parameter restrictions imposed in prior work. The experiments further show that theMP index policy typically outperforms standard benchmark policies, often by a substantial margin.

05.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-19

MetaResearcher: Scaling Deep Research via Self-Reflective Reinforcement Learning in Adversarial Virtual Environments

arXiv:2606.19893v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Deep research agents have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in autonomous information gathering and synthesis, yet their training remains constrained by the static nature of simulated environments, the limits of fact-retrieval-only task designs, and the inefficiency of outcome-based reinforcement learning. In this work, we propose MetaResearcher, a novel framework that scales deep research agent training across four synergistic dimensions. First, we introduce an Evolving Virtual World that injects temporal dynamics and adversarial misinformation into the training environment, forcing agents to develop source credibility assessment and temporal conflict resolution skills. Second, we design Discovery-Oriented Tasks – including hypothesis generation and contradiction resolution – that transcend simple fact retrieval and push agents toward genuine research behaviors. Third, we propose a Self-Reflective Meta-Reward mechanism within the GRPO framework that jointly optimizes for answer correctness, search path efficiency, reflection depth, and tool call diversity, directly addressing the repetitive action loop problem observed in prior work. Fourth, we introduce a Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Swarm architecture comprising specialized Scout, Filter, and Synthesizer models that learn collaborative research strategies through coordinated reinforcement learning. Built upon the LiteResearcher infrastructure, MetaResearcher requires zero marginal API cost for training while targeting substantial improvements in both benchmark performance (GAIA, Xbench-DS) and epistemic robustness under adversarial conditions. We present the complete framework design, training methodology, and planned experimental validation.

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

Airport Terminal Passenger Queue Forecasting for Departure Gates and Security Checkpoints

arXiv:2606.07622v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Accurate passenger queue forecasting in airport terminals is essential for efficient departure operations, as it enables proactive congestion management. However, time-varying passenger demand and heterogeneous facility usage across multiple departure facilities make forecasting challenging. In this work, we propose a passenger queue forecasting framework that learns historical passenger flow patterns from operational data. The proposed model employs a Transformer-based architecture to capture temporal dependencies and inter-facility correlations using past queue length and waiting time at departure gates and security checkpoints, together with passenger throughput at check-in islands. The learned representations are mapped to two facility-specific prediction heads to predict queue length and waiting time at departure gates and security checkpoints. Experimental results demonstrate accurate forecasts up to two hours ahead. The proposed approach offers practical real-time decision support for proactive queue management and staff reallocation in airport terminal operations.

07.
medRxiv (Medicine) 2026-06-11

Plasma protein prioritisation in rheumatoid arthritis reveals druggable targets and shared biology with cardiovascular diseases

Abstract Background Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune inflammatory disease with complex and incompletely understood molecular mechanisms. Understanding circulating proteins associated with RA may improve understanding of disease biology and clarify its pathological links with cardiometabolic comorbidities. Methods A proteome-wide two-sample Mendelian randomisation (MR) drug target analysis was conducted using plasma proteins measured in 54,219 participants from the UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics Project as exposures and RA and cardiometabolic diseases as the outcomes. Summary statistics for RA included 53,663 cases and 1,070,200 controls. Colocalisation analysis was performed to confirm shared single causal variants and prioritise RA proteins supported by both MR and colocalisation. The prioritised proteins were then evaluated in the Accelerating Medicines Partnership RA Phase II synovial single-cell dataset for cell-type expression patterns. Druggability was then assessed followed by analysis of genetic overlap between RA-associated proteins and cardiometabolic diseases. Results 37 plasma proteins had a causal effect on RA risk, supported by combined evidence from MR and conditional colocalisation. In synovial tissue, TPPP3, RARRES2, AKAP12, and GGT5 were predominantly expressed in stromal and endothelial cell clusters. Druggability assessment identified IFNGR2, IL6R, CD40, and FCGR2B as Tier 1 targets. However, several biologically relevant proteins, including RARRES2, AKAP12, TPPP3, and SNX2, had limited available druggability data. Genetic overlap analysis demonstrated shared protein signals between RA and cardiovascular diseases, including overlap of RARRES2 and TPPP3 with coronary artery disease (CAD) and FCGR2B with atrial fibrillation (AF). To approximate the therapeutic effect of target inhibition, the direction of effect estimates for proteins showing overlap between RA-CAD and RA-AF was reversed. Conclusion This study identified circulating proteins involved in RA pathogenesis and reveals shared mechanisms between RA and cardiovascular diseases. While some proteins showed clear translational potential targets, several prioritised proteins had limited available druggability information and could not be confidently classified. Addressing these gaps may help identify new targets relevant to RA management. Future work should also use phenome-wide MR studies to evaluate potential on-target adverse effects of protein inhibition across RA-CAD and RA-AF.

08.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-19

Direct Advantage Estimation for Scalable and Sample-efficient Deep Reinforcement Learning

arXiv:2606.20411v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Direct Advantage Estimation (DAE) has been shown to improve the sample efficiency of deep reinforcement learning algorithms. However, its reliance on full environment observability limits its applicability in realistic settings, and its requirement to model transition probabilities incurs substantial computational overhead for high-dimensional observations. In the present work, we address both limitations. First, we extend the theoretical framework of DAE to partially observable domains with minimal modifications. Second, we reduce its computational complexity by introducing discrete latent dynamics models that efficiently approximate transition probabilities. We evaluate our approach on the Arcade Learning Environment and find that DAE scales effectively with function approximator capacity while retaining high sample efficiency.

09.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-16

Filtered ANN as a Phase Transition: When Selectivity-Estimation Error Causes Plan Regret

arXiv:2606.16341v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: A filtered approximate-nearest-neighbor (ANN) query returns the k nearest vectors among those satisfying an attribute predicate P of selectivity s. The best execution strategy – pre-filter, post-filter, or in-filter – changes with s, so a system must estimate s and choose. We model this as an argmax over a landscape with phases (regions where each strategy wins) separated by boundaries, and show that selectivity-estimation error produces plan regret – recall lost versus the oracle strategy – only in the critical regions around those boundaries. The regret is a wedge of log-width equal to the multiplicative estimation error epsilon and height equal to the local cliff |V'(s*)| epsilon; the flip-margin 1/|V'(s*)| is the condition number of a sibling cardinality-estimation study reappearing as the local boundary theory. The two phase boundaries follow from independent mathematics: order statistics place the post-filter cliff at s ~ k/K, and site percolation places the in-filter cliff at s_c ~ 0.83/M for graph degree M (corpus-size independent). Criticality exists only under a constrained budget B < sqrt(k n). Under pre-registered decision rules we confirm, on synthetic sweeps and real SIFT1M, that regret concentrates ~290x at the boundary and that the regret curves obey a finite-size scaling collapse onto one universal wedge across two decades of corpus size. A real approximate index does not mis-locate the boundary, but a biased cost model opens a persistent miscalibration band that estimation-error robustness cannot fix. The contribution is a characterization, not a new index. Code and the full pre-registration are public.

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

SegDINO: Introducing Multi-Scale Structure into DINO for Efficient Medical Image Segmentation

Self-supervised DINO models provide strong transferable visual representations, yet applying them directly to image segmentation remains challenging. Existing approaches commonly rely on heavy decoders with complex upsampling, introducing substantial parameter and computational overhead. We observe that introducing scale into DINO features is far more critical than increasing decoder capacity. In this work, we present SegDINO, an efficient segmentation framework that integrates a DINOv3 backbone with lightweight scale modeling. SegDINO introduces Token Pyramid Adaptation (TPA) to reorganize intermediate DINO features into a pseudo multi-scale hierarchy, and Scale-Aware Decoding (SAD) for efficient intra-scale refinement and top-down multi-scale propagation. We further curate PanCT, a new CT dataset containing 284 patients with expert-annotated pancreatic tumors, to assess SegDINO's ability to handle difficult small-lesion cases. Extensive experiments on PanCT and three public benchmarks demonstrate that SegDINO achieves state-of-the-art results with high efficiency. The code is available at https://github.com/script-Yang/segdino_v2.

11.
medRxiv (Medicine) 2026-06-12

Metastatic Patterns and Treatment Characteristics of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer in Nigeria: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Background: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive breast cancer subtype characterized by the absence of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 expression. It is associated with limited targeted treatment options, early relapse, and a high propensity for visceral metastasis. Data describing metastatic patterns and treatment characteristics of TNBC in Nigeria remain limited. Methods: This retrospective descriptive cohort study included 869 patients with TNBC managed at the Medserve-LUTH Cancer Center, Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Nigeria between June 2019 and June 2024. Demographic, clinicopathologic, metastatic, and treatment-related data were extracted from electronic medical records. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize patient characteristics, metastatic patterns, and treatment profiles. Associations between metastatic disease and selected clinicopathologic and treatment variables were explored using Pearsons chi-square test. Complete-case analysis was applied throughout. Results: The mean age at presentation was 52.09 {+/-} 12.26 years. Most patients were married (79.1%), postmenopausal (64.3%), and of Yoruba ethnicity (56.8%). Advanced disease predominated, with Stage III and Stage IV disease accounting for 42.9% and 35.6% of cases, respectively. Invasive ductal carcinoma was the most common histologic subtype (77.0%), while Grade II tumours constituted 51.3% of graded cases. Surgery was performed in 73.1% of patients, predominantly mastectomy (70.9% of surgical procedures). Chemotherapy was administered to 83.2% of patients, most commonly anthracycline-based regimens (41.8%), while radiotherapy was delivered to 63.5% of patients, with hypofractionated schedules of 42-43 Gy in 15-16 fractions accounting for 47.2% of radiotherapy courses. Metastatic disease was documented in 32.9% of evaluable patients. Lung metastasis was the most frequent site (62.5%), followed by bone (46.3%), regional lymph node invasion (38.5%), liver (23.0%), and brain (22.6%). Tumour grade and histologic subtype were not significantly associated with metastatic disease, whereas radiotherapy exposure demonstrated a significant association with metastatic status ({chi}{superscript 2} = 10.35, p = 0.001). Conclusion: TNBC in this Nigerian cohort was characterized by advanced-stage presentation, invasive ductal predominance, extensive use of multimodality treatment, and substantial visceral metastatic burden. Lung metastasis was the most common metastatic site. These findings provide contemporary real-world data on TNBC in Nigeria and highlight the continuing need for earlier diagnosis, timely referral, and sustained investment in comprehensive cancer care services.

12.
PLOS Medicine 2026-05-13

Contribution of nosocomial transmission to <i>Klebsiella pneumoniae</i> neonatal sepsis in Africa and South Asia: An observational study of infection clusters inferred from pathogen genomics and temporal data

by Erkison Ewomazino Odih, Jabir A. Abdulahi, Anne V. Amulele, Matthew Bates, Eva Heinz, Weiming Hu, Kajal Jain, Rindidzani Magobo, Courtney P. Olwagen, John M. Tembo, Tolbert Sonda, Jonathan Strysko, Caroline C. Tigoi, Kyle Bittinger, Jennifer Cornick, Ebenezer Foster-Nyarko, Wilson Gumbi, Steven M. Jones, Chileshe L. Musyani, Carolyn M. McGann, Ahmed M. Moustafa, Patrick Musicha, James C. L. Mwansa, Moreka L. Ndumba, Thomas D. Stanton, Donwilliams O. Omuoyo, Oliver Pearse, Laura T. Phillips, Paul J. Planet, Charlene M. C. Rodrigues, Fatou Secka, Kirsty Sands, Erin Theiller, Allan M. Zuza, Sulagna Basu, Grace J. Chan, Kenneth C. Iregbu, Jean-Baptiste Mazarati, Semaria Solomon Alemayehu, Timothy R. Walsh, Rabaab Zahra, Angela Dramowski, Sombo Fwoloshi, Appiah-Korang Labi, Lola Madrid, Noah Obeng-Nkrumah, David Ojok, Boaz D. Wadugu, Andrew C. Whitelaw, Anudita Bhargava, Atul Jindal, Ramesh K. Agarwal, Alexander M. Aiken, James A. Berkley, Susan E. Coffin, Nicholas A. Feasey, Nelesh P. Govender, Davidson H. Hamer, Shabir A. Madhi, Mari Jeeva Sankar, Kelly L. Wyres, Kathryn E. Holt Background Klebsiella pneumoniae is the leading cause of sepsis among neonates in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in Africa and Asia, contributing substantially to the overall burden of antimicrobial-resistant infections and mortality among neonates globally. Pathogen sequencing has been used to investigate case clusters and confirm nosocomial transmission in a small number of neonatal units. Here we utilise pathogen sequence data to estimate the fraction of K. pneumoniae neonatal sepsis attributable to nosocomial transmission in African and South Asian countries. Methods and findings We estimated the proportion of invasive K. pneumoniae disease involved in nosocomial transmission clusters in a given neonatal unit, using single-linkage clustering based on pairwise temporal and genetic distances estimated from bacterial whole-genome sequences aggregated from 10 contributing studies. Analysing 1,523 K. pneumoniae isolates from 27 units in 13 countries in Africa and South Asia between 2013 and 2023, we inferred 156 nosocomial transmission clusters, ranging from 2 to 188 neonates each (83 of the clusters comprised ≥3 cases). Overall, we estimated that 1,035 neonatal infections (68.0%) were part of nosocomial transmission clusters. Excluding the first infection in each cluster as a potential index case, we estimate at least 879 (57.7%) infections were acquired via nosocomial transmission. Sensitivity analyses showed that results were robust to the choice of genetic distance estimation methods and thresholds used to define clusters, and cluster estimates were stable over temporal distance thresholds ranging from 2 to 8 weeks. Isolates were mostly extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) producers (90.9%) and included 172 multi-locus sequence types (STs). Fourteen STs, including several globally recognised multidrug-resistant lineages, were associated with transmission clusters at multiple units, and these were collectively responsible for two-thirds of all infections. Carriage of carbapenemase genes (adjusted odds ratio, aOR = 2.08 [95% confidence interval, CI: 1.04, 4.14]; p = 0.04) and ESBL genes (aOR = 2.48 [95% CI: 1.26, 4.90]; p = 0.006) were significantly positively associated with transmission in a logistic regression model with site as a covariate. Limitations of this study include the lack of sufficient clinical data to allow high-resolution investigation of transmission dynamics and lack of facility-level data to investigate contributors to the observed differences in transmission burden across sites. Conclusions Nosocomial transmission contributes to a substantial proportion of K. pneumoniae sepsis in neonatal care units in Africa and South Asia. Reducing transmission within these settings through improved infection prevention and control and other measures could substantially reduce the neonatal sepsis burden. A high burden of transmission clusters is associated with the same drug-resistant lineages that are recognised as high-risk clones associated with hospital outbreaks in high-income countries, indicating global connectivity of the antimicrobial-resistant pathogen population.

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

Morphology-Aware Sample Assignment: Overcoming IoU Insensitivity for Surface Defect Detection

Intersection-over-Union (IoU), as a pivotal metric for evaluating the spatial alignment between candidate proposals and ground-truth annotations, directly determines the quality of positive sample sets and the training efficacy of visual detection models. Through theoretical modeling and analysis, we uncover a non-sensitive region on the IoU response curve, within which samples yield nearly identical IoU scores despite distinct geometric overlaps. To overcome this limitation, we introduce a set of morphological similarity metrics covering area, shape, and aspect ratio, to refine the positive sample assignment process, thereby ensuring more discriminative and reliable matching. A supplementary matching score is derived via mean-based aggregation of these multidimensional similarities, compensating for the intrinsic limitation of IoU in representing structural correspondence. Theoretically, incorporating morphological similarity reshapes the response distribution of the matching function, yielding both effective directional gradients and polygon-like iso-response contours, which tightly confine high-response regions around each ground-truth instance and substantially enhance the precision of positive sample selection. Experiments based on the YOLOv9 framework demonstrate consistent performance gains on both NEUDET and GC10- DET datasets. Notably, the proposed approach is fully plug-and-play and incurs zero additional inference overhead, thereby ensuring deployment efficiency for industrial visual inspection.

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

AmchiBias: Measuring Stereotypical Bias in Goan Identity Groups with a Minimal Pair Dataset in English and Konkani

Socio-cultural stereotypical bias is an important consideration in the development and deployment of NLP systems. It is however often considered only at the national level, despite rich subnational socio-cultural structures. We present AmchiBias, the first benchmark for measuring socio-cultural stereotypical bias for the Indian state of Goa with its unique historically multicultural setting. It covers various Goan identity groups and comprises 313 minimal pairs across eight sociodemographic dimensions in both English and Devanagari Konkani. We then evaluate stereotypical bias in five multilingual encoder models on this benchmark. We find near-chance scores in Konkani, reflecting language incompetence for general multilingual models and a lack of Goan cultural competence for Indian language models. Queried in English, models with a stronger Indian language coverage show higher bias for pan-Indian groups than hyperlocal Goan groups. This suggests the English signal reflects pan-Indian pretraining associations rather than genuine Goan cultural knowledge. Our findings highlight a critical gap in low-resource multilingual NLP evaluation for hyperlocal community identities.

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

Conformalized Quantum DeepONet Ensembles for Scalable Operator Learning with Distribution-Free Uncertainty

arXiv:2605.00330v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Operator learning enables fast surrogate modeling of high-dimensional dynamical systems, but existing approaches face two fundamental limitations: quadratic inference complexity and unreliable uncertainty quantification in safety-critical settings. We propose Conformalized Quantum DeepONet Ensembles, a framework that addresses both challenges simultaneously. By leveraging Quantum Orthogonal Neural Networks (QOrthoNNs), we reduce operator inference complexity from O(n^2) to O(n), enabling scalable evaluation over fine discretizations. To provide rigorous uncertainty quantification, we combine ensemble-based epistemic modeling with adaptive conformal prediction, yielding distribution-free coverage guarantees. A key challenge in ensembling is that naive parallelism scales hardware resources linearly with the number of models. We resolve this by using Superposed Parameterized Quantum Circuits (SPQCs), which compress multiple ensemble members into a single circuit and enable simultaneous multi-model execution. Experiments on synthetic partial differential equations and real-world power system dynamics demonstrate that our approach achieves accurate predictions while maintaining calibrated uncertainty under realistic quantum noise. These results establish a practical pathway toward scalable, uncertainty-aware operator learning in quantum machine learning.

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

Assessing Predictive Models for Fairness Based on Movement Patterns

arXiv:2605.23234v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Assessing the spatial fairness of predictive models involves establishing whether they are statistically penalizing (favoring) individuals associated with certain geographical locations. Literature on this topic makes the fundamental assumption that each individual is assigned to a single geographical location (e.g., place of residence). However, fairness with respect to the set of locations where one has been, i.e., their movement patterns over different regions, also matters when fairness is considered. Consequently, we argue that it is necessary to generalize the notion of spatial fairness to also include movement patterns, leading to the novel problem of assessing predictive models for fairness relative to the movements of individuals. To deal with this problem, we propose an approach that first associates the movements of individuals to certain geographic regions, considering multiple spatial partitions with different resolutions and alignments, and then employs a suitable spatial scan statistic to assess whether a predictive model is fair based on movement patterns. In the experimental evaluation, we study the performance of our approach over thousands of synthetic unfair datasets, showing that it is effective at detecting this new type of unfairness and at retrieving the set of objects treated unfairly, while localization performance exhibits a consistent multi-resolution trade-off.

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

Beyond Perplexity: UTF-8 Validity in Byte-aware Language Models

Byte-level tokenization enables language models to handle any Unicode input, but models can generate invalid UTF-8 sequences when encountering rare or unseen characters. We investigate the relationship between training scale and UTF-8 generation reliability with a 355M parameter model trained on 80B tokens from a balanced multilingual corpus of English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. We introduce multiple evaluation protocols that isolate UTF-8 structural validity from language modeling. UTF-8 validity convergence lags perplexity by a roughly a factor of two: perplexity stabilizes after 2.1B tokens, but UTF-8 validity requires 4.2B tokens. In context-free generation, rare characters achieve higher structural validity than common characters, suggesting over-specialization of frequent character representations. Through experiments, we observed that reliable UTF-8 generation is a distinct capability requiring evaluation beyond perplexity.

18.
arXiv (CS.CL) 2026-06-12

When Does Mixing Help? Analyzing Query Embedding Interpolation in Multilingual Dense Retrieval

While mixed-language querying is ubiquitous in multilingual communities, the sensitivity of dense retrievers to such queries remains poorly understood. We present a ratio-controlled study on mMARCO that systematically evaluates retrieval performance by varying the mixing proportion of parallel query translations via embedding-level mixing – constructing mixed queries as an interpolation of monolingual embeddings. Experiments with BGE-M3 demonstrate that an optimal mixing ratio outperforms the best monolingual endpoint in 88/105 cases. We uncover a distinct asymmetry driven by English dominance: mixing is uniformly beneficial when retrieving from non-English document indices, whereas indices containing English are best served by pure English queries. Furthermore, English acts as the strongest mixing partner for every non-English document language. Finally, when controlling for English dominance, mixing gains correlate negatively with typological distance. We conclude that language-mix sensitivity is structured and predictable, and we validate the robustness of these patterns across model families and scales.

19.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-11

PROJECTMEM: A Local-First, Event-Sourced Memory and Judgment Layer for AI Coding Agents

arXiv:2606.12329v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: AI coding assistants now support a growing share of software work, from quick scripts to production applications. Yet these agents remain largely stateless: each new session re-reads project files, re-derives prior decisions, and - most costly - may repeat debugging attempts that already failed. Reconstructing this context can consume an estimated 5,000-20,000 tokens per session; the bottleneck is often not model capability but missing project memory. We present projectmem, an open-source, local-first memory and judgment layer for AI coding agents. projectmem records development as an append-only, plain-text event log of typed events - issues, attempts, fixes, decisions, and notes - and deterministically projects that log into compact, AI-readable summaries served through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Beyond storage, projectmem adds a deterministic pre-action gate that warns an agent before it repeats a previously failed fix or edits a known-fragile file. We frame this as Memory-as-Governance: memory that does not merely answer the agent but acts on its next action. The system runs fully offline with no telemetry; its immutable log also serves as a provenance trail for reproducible, auditable AI-assisted development. projectmem ships as a three-dependency Python package (14 MCP tools, 19 CLI commands, 37 automated tests) and is evaluated through a two-month self-study across 10 projects comprising 207 logged events. Source code: https://github.com/riponcm/projectmem.

20.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-16

Generalized Kerr-Cat Qubit Codes

arXiv:2606.14901v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We present a systematic study of Schrödinger cat codes constructed from Kerr-type coherent states, including displaced Kerr coherent states and Barut–Girardello Kerr coherent states, each admitting two distinct families determined by the sign of the Kerr nonlinearity. By tuning the Kerr parameter and coherent-state amplitude, these states interpolate between $\mathfrak{su}(2)$, $\mathfrak{su}(1,1)$ coherent states, providing a unified and versatile foundation for this type of bosonic quantum error correction. Unlike standard two-component Schrödinger cat codes, where a single photon-loss event induces an uncorrectable bit-flip, the nonlinear phase-space structure of Kerr cat states enables simultaneous detection and correction of both photon-loss and dephasing errors within a unified recovery framework, with optimal recovery operations determined via convex optimization. We demonstrate that Kerr cat encodings significantly outperform conventional cat codes under combined loss and dephasing noise, and that judicious parameter optimization can suppress both error channels to a level that reduces the overhead of additional error correction layers. We further show that Kerr-deformed coherent-state manifolds under engineered two-photon driving emerge as effective steady states of driven-dissipative dynamics, with single-photon decoherence strongly suppressed and leakage outside the protected manifold appearing only as higher-order corrections in the deformation strength. Our extended formalism identifies generalized Kerr Schrödinger cat codes as promising candidates for fault-tolerant bosonic quantum computation in experimental platforms such as nonlinear photonics.

21.
medRxiv (Medicine) 2026-06-16

Cardiac positronium lifetime in human PET: a reproducible right-left ventricular contrast that is not explained by blood oxygenation

Background. Ortho-positronium (o-Ps) lifetime, now measurable in vivo on long-axial-field-of-view (LAFOV) PET/CT, has been proposed as a biomarker of tissue oxygenation and hypoxia. Because o-Ps lifetime is dominated by tissue free-volume structure while the oxygen- specific contribution is small, whether an in-vivo lifetime contrast reflects oxygenation rather than anatomy is an open, identifiability-limited question. Aim. To test the oxygenation hypothesis directly using the heart's natural arterial/venous oxygenation contrast, with a built-in anatomical control. Methods. We re-analysed a public [82Rb]Cl human cardiac LAFOV PET/CT dataset (5.30 x 10^8 evaluated three-photon events). Per-compartment o-Ps lifetimes were extracted with a background-plus-two-component exponentially-modified-Gaussian (EMG) model. The list-mode to image mapping and right/left ventricle (RV/LV) identity were established lifetime-free (the mapping reproduces the provider's reconstructed image at block-correlation 0.998 and wins a joint multi-organ alignment panel). We applied a confound battery: registration stress test, blood-core vs wall, lung-air and wall-myocardium partial-volume, tissue density; and a structure/position-matched control (pulmonary artery, deoxygenated, vs aorta, oxygenated). An isotope-matched 82Rb uniform-quartz reference bounded the instrument's positional behaviour. All results were produced by two independent analysis pipelines. Results. RV o-Ps lifetime exceeded LV by delta tau = +0.304 ns (RV 1.700 +/- 0.172, LV 1.396 +/- 0.130 ns; about 1.4 sigma), in the oxygen-expected direction; the contrast was stable across +/-16 mm registration perturbation (sign preserved in 100% of 342 shifts) and resided in the blood core, not the wall. However, the matched-vessel control was null: pulmonary artery minus aorta = -0.011 +/- 0.344 ns. Lung-air and wall-myocardium partial-volume were disfavoured, and the effect fell within the isotope-matched 82Rb instrumental positional envelope (about 0.1-0.35 ns over 40 mm in uniform material). Conclusion. On this single subject, the cardiac o-Ps lifetime contrast does not provide a clean readout of blood oxygenation: an oxygenation effect of the observed (about 0.3 ns) magnitude is ruled out by the matched control, while a small physiological effect cannot be excluded. We provide a reusable confound-control battery for evaluating future in-vivo o-Ps oxygenation claims. Multi-subject replication with anatomy decoupled from oxygenation is required.

22.
arXiv (math.PR) 2026-06-12

Storage and Transport Capacity Design for a Self-Reliable Two-Node Stochastic Resource System

arXiv:2606.12707v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We study a two-node stochastic resource system operating over a finite horizon. Each node experiences uncertain supply and demand and is equipped with finite storage. The objective is to ensure that resource levels remain within prescribed limits with high probability. To this end, we formulate a chance-constrained capacity-design problem in which resources can be exchanged through a capacity-limited transport link. We characterize the minimum storage required at each node, derive the optimal transport policy, and quantify the trade-off between storage and transport capacities. Our results show the existence of a critical transport-capacity threshold that enables full risk pooling between the nodes. Moreover, this threshold decreases with the operating horizon, implying that full-pooling performance can be achieved with progressively smaller transport capacity over longer horizons.

23.
medRxiv (Medicine) 2026-06-18

Development and Initial Validation of the Quality of life Evaluation in NF2-related Schwannomatosis Trials (QUEST) Assessment

Individuals with NF2-related schwannomatosis (NF2-SWN) experience a complex constellation of physical, emotional, and social symptoms that substantially impact quality of life (QoL). Although disease-specific patient-reported outcome measures are increasingly important for evaluating treatment benefit in clinical trials, existing NF2-SWN QoL measures have limitations in content coverage and sensitivity to change. This study describes the development and initial validation a new disease-specific QoL assessment – the Quality of Life Evaluation in NF2-related Schwannomatosis Trials (QUEST). Using a three-phase, mixed-methods approach, items were generated through concept elicitation interviews with individuals with NF2-SWN and clinicians, prioritized via patient survey data, and refined through iterative cognitive debriefing procedures. The resulting 21-item QUEST assesses the extent to which NF2-SWN has negatively impacted a persons daily life over the past seven days. Initial psychometric evaluation was conducted in an international sample of 174 individuals with NF2-SWN aged 15 years and older (117 women (67%), 158 White individuals (89%)). Exploratory factor analysis supported a four-factor structure, and the total score demonstrated excellent internal consistency and strong test-retest reliability. Evidence of construct validity was demonstrated through hypothesized associations with disease-specific, generic, and domain-specific QoL measures, as well as known-groups validity based on self-reported disease severity and number of prior surgeries. Incremental validity analyses indicated that QUEST explained unique variance beyond existing measures. Together, findings support the QUEST as a reliable and valid disease-specific QoL measure with strong content validity and feasibility for use as a clinical trial endpoint in NF2-SWN.

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arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-16

Frame-Conditioned Moral Computation in LLaMA 3.1-8B-Instruct: A Mechanistic Interpretability Audit of Ethical Reasoning

arXiv:2606.15507v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Behavioral audits of Large Language Models on moral prompts measure what the model says, not the internal computation producing it. We use Transluce, an AI-driven mechanistic-interpretability platform, to examine LLaMA 3.1-8B-Instruct on 54 moral prompts in four batteries: 17 dilemmas, policy, and meta-ethical questions (B1); 6 role-playing scenarios (B3); and a controlled trolley contrast varying the switching mechanism with people fixed (B4, 15 prompts) or identity attributes with mechanism fixed (B5, 16 prompts). Two complementary metric families, five cluster-level metrics and a six-metric neuron-level panel, converge on a Situational Anchor Effect: domain-specific representations dominate the top of the activation list across every battery. The model's ethics-labeled capacity stays essentially constant; its salience (rank, priority, top-of-list presence) is highly sensitive to the interpretive frame the prompt selects. The B4-vs-B5 contrast confirms the model attends to whichever surface feature varies: aggregate ethics metrics are indistinguishable, but the dominant non-ethics distractor mirrors the design. A multi-temperature audit identifies a candidate ethics neuron (L16/N3837) stable across temperatures; a cross-model behavioral proxy on two frontier models yields preliminary evidence of divergence in self-reported moral focus, consistent with an Alignment Wrapper in which RLHF re-orders surface text without removing underlying domain-first frames. We unify these as Frame-Conditioned Moral Computation: the prompt's surface vocabulary selects a feature manifold, and the moral conclusion is downstream of that selection. Behavioral alignment must be supplemented by Mechanistic Alignment: a research program asking whether ethics-related features can be shown causally privileged under controlled frame variation, not merely loud in the explanation.