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01.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-19

Impossibility of superluminal signalling rules out causal loops in conical spacetimes

arXiv:2606.20476v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: In PRL 129, 110401 it was shown that it is theoretically possible to have operationally detectable causal loops without violating the principle of no superluminal signalling (NSS) in (1+1)-Minkowski spacetime. Whether or not such causal loops are also possible in $d > 1$ spatial dimensions, has remained a key open question. We resolve this question by showing that in a wide class of "conical" spacetimes, including Minkowski with d > 1, NSS does rule out all operationally detectable causal loops, in classical, quantum and post-quantum theories. This establishes that the relationship between the relativistic principles of NSS and no causal loops depends inherently on the geometry of spacetime.

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

Practical Anonymous Two-Party Gradient Boosting Decision Tree

arXiv:2605.26903v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Structured data is well handled by gradient-boosted decision trees (GBDT), which are usually trained on vertically partitioned features across mutually distrustful parties. High speed and interpretability make GBDTs popular in finance and healthcare, where neural networks may fall short. Enabling secure computation for GBDTs poses unique challenges, requiring secure record alignment for comparison. Relying on private set intersection (PSI) is a de facto approach. Mistaking PSI for a safety measure actually exposes which record identifiers (IDs) are shared between the datasets. Although circuit-PSI could help, it is costly for generic uses. New ideas are needed to efficiently train in a "dark forest". Aiming to hide the IDs, we initiate the study of anonymous GBDT training on split data held by two parties. Dual circuit-PSI in our design lets the parties alternate as receiver to run pick-then-sum over local features. Via oblivious programmable pseudorandom functions, we propagate circuit-PSI outputs as shared state across runs. Avoiding universal alignment, we resolve the neglected dilemma that ID hiding incurs a cost that scales with domain size. Next, we halve the cost of ciphertext packing used to convert single-instruction multiple-data homomorphic encryption from (ring) learning with errors in prior secure GBDT (Usenix Security' 23) and related secure machine-learning computations. Comparative experiments show our protocol remains competitive with leaky approaches in efficiency. Enabling ID-hiding aggregation, our techniques can extend to other vertically partitioned analytics.

03.
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.

04.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-12

Real-Time Execution with Autoregressive Policies

arXiv:2606.13355v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Real-time execution, enabled by asynchronous inference that ensures both smooth action trajectories and fast reactivity, is critical for realistic deployments of large-scale Vision-Language-Action models. However, recent work on real-time execution primarily focuses on variants of diffusion policies, even though it is more critical for autoregressive policies given their slower rollout speed in synchronous inference. In contrast, we demonstrate that autoregressive policies can achieve real-time execution by adjusting the tokenization horizon and applying constrained decoding, thereby guaranteeing strict latency bounds that enable multi-trajectory decoding to maximize performance. Across simulated and real-world environments, we find that the autoregressive policy consistently outperforms its equivalent-level flow-matching policy counterpart while achieving significantly improved task completion speeds from synchronous inference. Coupled with the inherent advantages of autoregressive policies, such as faster convergence and better generalizability in instruction-following, these results confirm that autoregressive policies can remain a competitive policy type supporting real-time execution.

05.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-15

Who can compete with quantum computers? Lecture notes on quantum inspired tensor networks computational techniques

arXiv:2601.03035v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: This is a set of lectures on tensor networks with a strong emphasis on the core algorithms involving Matrix Product States (MPS) and Matrix Product Operators (MPO). Compared to other presentations, particular care has been given to disentangle aspects of tensor networks from the quantum many-body problem: MPO/MPS algorithms are presented as a way to deal with linear algebra on extremely (exponentially) large matrices and vectors, regardless of any particular application. The lectures include well-known algorithms to find eigenvectors of MPOs (the celebrated DMRG), solve linear problems, and recent learning algorithms that allow one to map a known function into an MPS (the Tensor Cross Interpolation, or TCI, algorithm). The lectures end with a discussion of how to represent functions and perform calculus with tensor networks using the "quantics" representation. They include the detailed analytical construction of important MPOs such as those for differentiation, indefinite integration, convolution, and the quantum Fourier transform. Three concrete applications are discussed in detail: the simulation of a quantum computer (either exactly or with compression), the simulation of a quantum annealer, and techniques to solve partial differential equations (e.g. Poisson, diffusion, or Gross-Pitaevskii) within the "quantics" representation. The lectures have been designed to be accessible to a first-year PhD student and include detailed proofs of all statements.

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

Inside the Latent Flow: Causal Deciphering of Attention Dynamics in Audio Separation Foundation Models

arXiv:2606.10046v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Flow-matching transformers achieve strong audio separation, yet their attention dynamics are opaque. We adapt established causal-intervention principles into a deterministic, inference-time probing protocol for SAM Audio. Orthogonal probing uncovers a dual-pathway text-conditioning mechanism: additive injections control semantic identity, while cross-attention refines acoustic structure. We observe an asynchronous layerwise convergence: stable layers build temporal scaffolds early, whereas fast layers continue resolving artifacts during sampling. The model also attenuates temporal segmentation cues to maintain continuous-flow stability. Using these insights, we propose Layer-Selective Attention Caching (LSAC), a training-free acceleration method that caches attention in stable layers. Across acoustic complexities, LSAC cuts self-attention computation by about ~25% with negligible quality loss and yields up to 6.7x higher quality retention than naive step reduction.

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

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

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.

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

Gender Bias in LLM Hiring Decisions: Evidence from a Japanese Context and Evaluation of Mitigation Strategies

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed in hiring workflows, yet most research on gender bias in LLM hiring decisions has focused on English-language, Western-format resumes. This study examines whether pro-female gender bias extends to a Japanese corporate context and evaluates two practical mitigation strategies. Using a counterfactual resume design with 60 Japanese rirekisho-format resumes, 12 name pairs selected on linguistically grounded gender-signal criteria, and five state-of-the-art LLMs (Claude Sonnet 4.6, GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3, Gemini 2.5 Flash, Llama 3.3 70B), we conducted 43,200 API calls across baseline, prompt instruction, and privacy filter conditions. A crossed random-effects linear mixed model confirms a significant pro-female bias across all five models, replicating Western findings in a non-Western context. A prompt-level gender-neutrality instruction produces no meaningful reduction in bias. A name-reliance analysis formally identifies the candidate name as the primary gender channel: removing the name from the prompt reduces the female effect by nearly its full magnitude. An unexpected incompatibility between the privacy filter and GPT-4o's content safety filter, resulting in a 42% refusal rate, highlights a practical deployment challenge for name anonymization in LLM-assisted recruitment pipelines.

09.
arXiv (CS.CV) 2026-06-19

Through the PRISM: Preference Representation in Intermediate States of Video Diffusion Models

Evaluating video generation with clean, pixel-based reward models disconnects evaluation from the noisy diffusion process and incurs massive VAE decoding costs. In this paper, we challenge this paradigm by asking a fundamental question: Can a powerful video generator inherently discriminate preferences directly from noisy latents? To answer this, we introduce PRISM (Preference Representation in Intermediate States of Diffusion Models). PRISM employs a lightweight Query-based Aggregation head with a frozen video diffusion backbone to decode preference signals from noisy latents. Surprisingly, PRISM not only achieves SOTA preference accuracy but also unlocks strong noise-robustness, which enables early-stage Best-of-$N$ sampling. This allows for filtering suboptimal candidates at the very beginning of denoising, drastically reducing computation while boosting video quality. We also reveal a strong positive correlation between a backbone's generative performance and its inherent evaluative power, enabling self-improving video backbones.

10.
arXiv (CS.LG) 2026-06-16

Filtered Conformal Ellipsoids for Graph-Native Time Series

arXiv:2606.17014v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Joint prediction sets for multivariate time series should control a single event while adapting to cross-coordinate dependence. We study filtered conformal ellipsoids: a frozen state-space filter emits a one-step predictive mean and covariance, and split-conformal calibration is applied to the resulting Mahalanobis scores. The filter is used to choose the ellipsoid shape; conformal calibration chooses the scalar radius, so the construction benefits from a learned predictive covariance without relying on Gaussian tail probabilities for coverage. The main difficulty is that filtered scores are dependent and learned recurrent filters need not contract in their raw hidden state; we therefore analyse contraction in an observable predictive-law quotient that identifies hidden states producing the same future sequence of emitted Gaussian laws. Under a stable Bayes Gaussian-projection filter, covariance bounds, and a finite-horizon observability Fisher condition, small excess Gaussian negative log-likelihood implies contraction of the learned emitted laws. Combined with a threshold-autocovariance envelope this yields a Chebyshev-type approximate coverage bound for filtered split-conformal prediction under dependence; a sharper Bernstein-type bound requires an additional geometric-mixing concentration assumption. Under Gaussian oracle realisability we also obtain a near-oracle log-volume comparison within the class of conditionally valid Gaussian ellipsoid rules. We instantiate the framework with a GCN-GRU filter with diagonal-plus-low-rank covariance. On moderate-size graph-native traffic benchmarks (METRLA-$20$ and PEMSBAY-$50$), the learned filter gives sharper at-target ellipsoids than static-covariance and non-filter baselines; at full-graph scale and on non-graph-native datasets, factor and copula baselines can be stronger.

11.
PLOS Computational Biology 2026-06-03

IsoPepTracker: An interactive web application for peptide-driven isoform analysis

作者:

by Araf Mahmud, Chen Huang Alternative splicing affects 95% of multi-exon genes, generating protein isoforms with distinct functions. While current alternative splicing analyses effectively identify splice events at the RNA level, they provide limited protein-level insight. To address this gap, we developed IsoPepTracker (https://www.isopeptracker.org), a user-friendly web application for analyzing and visualizing differential peptides across canonical and novel isoforms that are theoretically detectable by shotgun mass spectrometry-based proteomics. IsoPepTracker features four modules: Canonical Isoform Analysis, Novel Isoform Discovery, Peptide Sequence Search, and Alternative Splicing Analysis. Each module is tailored for distinct and complementary proteogenomics analyses. Users can input genes, novel cDNA sequences, peptides, or alternative splicing results to pinpoint peptides of interest and identify their associations with target genes or isoforms. We demonstrate the straightforward application of IsoPepTracker in proteogenomics through case studies. IsoPepTracker not only provides informative peptide signatures to understand the protein-level consequences of alternative splicing but also supplies peptide candidates for validation in shotgun proteomics.

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

Comparing Human Gaze and Vision-Language Model Attention in Safety-Relevant Environments

Human visual attention plays an important role in how people perceive and respond to environments containing potential risks. This study investigates whether large vision-language models can identify the same regions of a scene that attract human attention in safety-relevant environments. Eye-tracking data were collected from ten participants viewing 33 scene images representing environments with varying levels of potential risk using Pupil Invisible wearable glasses. Gaze coordinates were mapped onto stimulus images to generate population-averaged human gaze heatmaps. In parallel, GPT-4o was prompted through the OpenAI Vision Application Programming Interface (API) to generate spatial predictions of visual attention, which were converted into saliency maps for comparison with human gaze patterns. Spatial alignment between human gaze heatmaps and model-generated saliency maps was evaluated using four complementary metrics: Pearson correlation (r = 0.515 +- 0.117), Normalised Scanpath Saliency (NSS = 0.988 +- 0.323), Kullback-Leibler divergence (KL = 1.766 +- 0.844), and Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve using the Judd formulation (AUC-Judd = 0.806 +- 0.076). A cross-model comparison with Gemini Pro, Gemini Flash, and Claude showed that all models exceeded the AUC-Judd chance baseline of 0.5 and achieved positive NSS scores. Gemini Pro demonstrated the strongest spatial localisation according to three of the four metrics, whereas GPT-4o produced the closest distributional match to human attention as measured by KL divergence. These findings suggest that large vision-language models can identify regions that broadly correspond to where humans direct visual attention in safety-relevant scenes without requiring eye-tracking training data. The results highlight the potential of vision-language models as a scalable tool for approximating human attentional patterns.

13.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-12

Accidental Symmetry in the Tavis-Cummings Model via the Schwinger Boson Representation

arXiv:2606.12813v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The Jaynes-Cummings (JC) Hamiltonian is a paradigmatic model of light-matter interaction and, more generally, qubit-boson interactions, widely used across atomic, optical, and superconducting qubit platforms. In the multi-qubit setting, where n qubits are identically coupled to a single boson mode, this interaction is known as the Tavis-Cummings (TC) Hamiltonian. The structure of the TC model is usually understood in terms of two standard symmetries: permutation invariance of the qubits and a U(1) symmetry associated with conservation of the total excitation number. Here we identify an additional, independent "accidental" symmetry of the TC Hamiltonian and construct the corresponding conserved observable. We show that, for n>2 qubits, this symmetry imposes strong constraints on the realizable unitary transformations. These constraints persist in the presence of the global $J_z$ Hamiltonian, but are removed by adding $J_z^2$, even though $J_z^2$ preserves both permutation invariance and the U(1) symmetry. Finally, we explain the origin of this previously unnoticed symmetry using Schwinger's boson representation of angular momentum. These restrictions have important implications for controllability of the TC system and for its applications to quantum computing, which are investigated further in a companion paper.

14.
arXiv (CS.CV) 2026-06-15

ClinHallu: A Benchmark for Diagnosing Stage-Wise Hallucinations in Medical MLLM Reasoning

Building trustworthy medical multimodal large language models (MLLMs) is critical for reliable clinical decision support. Existing medical hallucination benchmarks mainly focus on data collection, but often ignore where hallucinations originate within the reasoning process. We find that hallucination sources vary across samples: errors may arise from visual misrecognition, incorrect medical knowledge recall, or flawed reasoning integration. To enable source-level hallucination diagnosis, we introduce ClinHallu, a benchmark for stage-wise hallucination diagnosis in medical MLLM reasoning. ClinHallu contains 7,031 validated instances, where each instance is augmented with a structured reasoning trace decomposed into Visual Recognition, Knowledge Recall, and Reasoning Integration. We also use stage-replacement interventions to measure how correcting specific stages affects the final answer. Beyond evaluation, we show that trace-supervised fine-tuning reduces stage-wise hallucinations. ClinHallu provides a fine-grained hallucination testbed for diagnosing and mitigating reasoning failures in medical MLLMs. The benchmark is publicly available at https://github.com/alibaba-damo-academy/ClinHallu.

15.
arXiv (math.PR) 2026-06-17

Critical spectral behavior and large deviations for geometric $\alpha$-stable processes

arXiv:2606.17501v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: In this paper, we study the Schrödinger-type operator associated with geometric stable processes on $\mathbb{R}^{d}$, especially the differentiability of spectral function. Let $\mathcal{H}$ be the generator of the geometric stable process and $\mu$ a smooth measure on $\mathbb{R}^{d}$. Then the spectral function $C(\theta)$ is defined as $C(\theta) = -\inf \sigma(-\mathcal{H} - \theta \mu)$, where $\sigma(\mathcal{A})$ denotes the spectrum of $\mathcal{A}$ and $\theta$ is a real parameter. Since the geometric stable process exhibits severe local singularities in its Lévy measure, its transition semigroup lacks ultracontractivity, which invalidates classical methods for proving the differentiability. To overcome this obstacle, we use the compact embedding of the extended Dirichlet space into $L^2(\mu)$. As a primary application of this differentiability, we establish a large deviation principle for a positive continuous additive functional associated with the smooth measure $\mu$.

16.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-15

When the Tool Decides: LLM Agents Defer Blindly to Graph Neural Network Tools, and Stronger Backbones Defer More

arXiv:2606.14476v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: A growing line of work equips large language model (LLM) agents with graph neural networks (GNNs) as callable tools, assuming the agent exercises judgment over when and how much to rely on such a tool. We test this directly. We expose a frozen GNN to a ReAct-style LLM agent as an explicit tool and measure, on node classification over a text-attributed graph (ogbn-arxiv, replicated on WikiCS), whether the agent uses the tool or merely obeys it. We find the agent does not exercise judgment: its predictions agree with the raw GNN's 97.6-99.2% of the time (5 seeds), collapsing into a GNN parrot that adopts the tool's output wholesale and bypasses its own reasoning. Sweeping backbone capability (Qwen2.5 0.5B-7B), the deference is not a weak-model artifact: among models able to invoke the tool, agreement rises with capability (0.60 to 0.98 from 1.5B to 7B). Crucially, the cost of deference does not shrink as capability grows and grows where alternatives emerge: a per-node oracle over the available actions beats the parrot by 0.09-0.18 at 3B and 0.12-0.22 at 7B, roughly doubling at high homophily, because the parrot is pinned to the frozen GNN while the agent's alternatives improve; at 7B a simple neighbour-label tool overtakes the GNN at high homophily (0.81 vs 0.71) yet the agent still defers. A simple selective-invocation gate recovers about half of that high-homophily gap (0.71 to 0.83) but yields no net global gain, and held-out estimates bound the best achievable gate over standard test-time features to at most a third of the oracle headroom: reliable selective invocation looks limited by available information, not merely router design. Our results are a cautionary measurement: evaluations of agent+tool systems cannot assume the agent adds judgment on top of the tool, and selective invocation must be designed in rather than expected to emerge from scale.

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

PRInTS: Reward Modeling for Long-Horizon Information Seeking

Information-seeking is a core capability for AI agents, requiring them to gather and reason over tool-generated information across long trajectories. However, such multi-step information-seeking tasks remain challenging for agents backed by language models. While process reward models (PRMs) can guide agents by ranking candidate steps at test-time, existing PRMs - designed for short reasoning with binary judgment - cannot capture richer dimensions of information-seeking steps, such as tool interactions and reasoning over tool outputs, nor handle the rapidly growing context in long-horizon tasks. To address these limitations, we introduce PRInTS, a generative PRM trained with dual capabilities: (1) dense scoring based on the PRM's reasoning across multiple dimensions of step quality (e.g., interpretation of tool outputs, tool call informativeness) and (2) trajectory summarization that compresses the growing context while preserving essential information for step evaluation. Extensive evaluations across FRAMES, GAIA (levels 1-3), and WebWalkerQA (easy-hard) benchmarks on multiple models reveal that best-of-n sampling with PRInTS enhances information-seeking in open-source models as well as specialized agents, matching or surpassing frontier models with a much smaller backbone agent and outperforming other strong reward modeling baselines.

18.
arXiv (CS.CV) 2026-06-17

Edit3DGS: Unified Framework for Dynamic Head Editing via 2D Instruction-Guided Diffusion and 3D Gaussian Splatting

We present Edit3DGS, a unified framework for dynamic 3D head editing that integrates 2D instruction-guided diffusion with 3D Gaussian splatting. Unlike prior approaches that separately address frame-based edits or static 3D reconstruction, our method couples semantic controllability in the image domain with photorealistic, temporally consistent 3D representations. Given an input video, editable facial regions are masked and modified using a text-conditioned diffusion model to support fine-grained operations such as expression transformation, attribute modification, and appearance refinement. The edited frames are then aggregated through 3D Gaussian splatting to produce a coherent, high-fidelity avatar that preserves both identity and motion dynamics. To enforce consistency, Edit3DGS incorporates multi-view batch editing and lightweight inpainting strategies that recover lost expressions across timesteps. Experimental results demonstrate that our framework enables controllable, artifact-free head editing with smooth temporal transitions, offering practical applications in virtual avatars, immersive communication, film production, and interactive media.

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

DLWM: Diverse Latent World Models for Efficient Multimodal Reasoning

Reasoning capabilities of multimodal large language models (MLLMs) have improved considerably in recent years. Existing approaches typically rely on explicit chain-of-thought or continuous latent-space trajectories to enhance multi-step reasoning. However, these methods generally assume that an input admits a single latent interpretation and unfold reasoning along a fixed path or under a uniform computation budget. In real-world multimodal settings, visual observations are often subject to occlusion, blur, viewpoint variation, or semantic ambiguity, giving rise to multiple plausible interpretations. A uniform reasoning strategy not only limits the model's ability to explore multiple hypotheses but also incurs high memory usage and rollout cost. We present DLWM (Diverse Latent World Models), a multimodal reasoning framework that combines latent-space reasoning with reinforcement learning. First, we construct a set of diverse latent world hypotheses in continuous latent space, each capturing a different plausible interpretation of the visual input, and unfold latent reasoning independently on each hypothesis. An orthogonality-based diversity regularizer explicitly prevents hypothesis collapse. Second, we formulate the latent reasoning process as a resource-constrained sequential decision problem and introduce a resource-aware reinforcement learning policy that adaptively allocates computation across hypotheses, dynamically deciding whether to expand, terminate, or merge reasoning paths, thereby substantially reducing memory footprint and improving rollout efficiency. Experiments on multiple multimodal reasoning benchmarks demonstrate that DLWM outperforms existing methods by 2-5 points in accuracy while reducing memory usage by 24%.

20.
arXiv (quant-ph) 2026-06-19

Inhibited radiative decay enhances single-photon emitters

arXiv:2511.23301v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Quantum networks and modular quantum computers require efficient spin-photon interfaces, often realized using optical resonators that enhance radiative decay on a desired transition. However, this requires small mode volumes and high quality factors, which limits multiplexing capacity and demands precise frequency tuning. Here, we demonstrate an alternative approach that circumvents these bottlenecks for upscaling. Using a W1 silicon photonic crystal waveguide with a tailored photonic bandgap, we selectively inhibit unwanted decay pathways, thereby redirecting emission to the desired transition. This enables efficient photon collection over a large frequency range, allowing the resolution and individual addressing of tens of erbium dopants. Their lifetimes are preserved, or even increased, compared to bulk material. The extended mode volume of the devices enables the use of lower dopant concentrations, thereby improving emitter coherence. Our approach can be combined with Purcell enhancement and applied to other spin-qubit platforms, opening intriguing perspectives for photonic quantum technologies.

21.
arXiv (CS.AI) 2026-06-15

Learning Coordinated Preference for Multi-Objective Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

arXiv:2606.14693v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Cooperative multi-objective multi-agent reinforcement learning (MOMARL) models team decision making under multiple, potentially conflicting objectives. In this setting, conflicts arise not only across objectives but also across agents with different observations, roles, and contributions. We propose Preference Coordinated Multi-agent Policy Optimization (PCMA), which learns coordinated agent-specific preferences to enable complementary trade-offs among agents. Theoretically, we formulate cooperative MOMARL as a team-optimal game and show that, under suitable conditions, preference diversity can induce team improvement through a first-order improvement decomposition. Experiments on multiple cooperative MOMA environments and a practical traffic-control scenario show that PCMA improves both performance and trade-off coordination.

23.
arXiv (CS.CV) 2026-06-11

MB-Loc: Multi-planar Bird's-eye-view Localization in outdoor LiDAR scenes

Global LiDAR localization is a fundamental task for autonomous navigation systems. Recent methods perform Scene Coordinate Regression (SCR) and achieve superior accuracy over Absolute Pose Regression (APR) solutions by predicting dense 3D world coordinates. However, SCR approaches introduce two major bottlenecks: severe computational inefficiency from processing raw 3D geometries and significant performance degradation under varying sensor viewpoints. To address these limitations, we present MB-Loc, a lightweight and viewpoint-robust SCR framework. Instead of relying on heavy 3D convolutions, we project the input LiDAR scan into a 2.5D Multi-planar Bird's-Eye View (BEV) representation. By slicing the point-cloud along the Z-axis and mapping signed depths into discrete 2D planes, MB-Loc retains essential 3D geometric structures while exploiting the computational tractability of standard 2D CNNs. To handle the inherent sparsity of outdoor LiDAR, we introduce a KL-regularized latent bottleneck that explicitly models spatial uncertainty without injecting stochastic noise. Finally, to ensure rotation robustness, we apply 3D spatial augmentations prior to planar projection, forcing the network to implicitly learn viewpoint-invariant features. We perform extensive experiments on the publicly available NCLT dataset and demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms the current state-of-the-art. Operating at real-time inference speeds, MB-Loc significantly outperforms traditional 3D-SCR architectures in computational efficiency.

24.
arXiv (CS.CV) 2026-06-11

Learning Instance-Adaptive Low-Rank Orthogonal Subspaces for Clothes-Changing Person Re-Identification

Clothes-changing person re-identification (CC-ReID) aims to recognize individuals despite drastic appearance changes caused by clothing variation. While existing methods rely on adversarial learning to disentangle clothing features, we propose Ortho-ReID, which explicitly models a low-rank clothing subspace from VLM text descriptions and extracts clothing-invariant representations via direct geometric constraints. A critical component is our transformer-based Basis Maker, which refines a shared, low-dimensional clothing prior into an instance-adaptive low-rank subspace through cross-attention with image patches, enabling robust clothing feature extraction even under varying visibility conditions. This instance-adaptive subspace is supervised via alignment with clothing text embeddings, while identity features are extracted via a learnable projection head and geometrically constrained to be strictly orthogonal to it. Extensive experiments demonstrate state-of-the-art performance on PRCC (+5.9% top-1), Celeb-reID-light (+3.5%), and LaST (+5.3%), with competitive results on LTCC.

25.
Nature (Science) 2026-06-10

Mitochondria directly interact with the nuclear pore complex

Mitochondria regulate cellular processes through direct and indirect interactions with other organelles. A well-studied example has been contact with the endoplasmic reticulum at mitochondrial-associated endoplasmic reticulum membranes1, which control pathways including redox and calcium homeostasis2,3. Recent studies have also reported direct mitochondria–nuclear membrane contacts in cancer cells and yeast that promote pro-survival signalling4,5. Here we identify direct interactions between mitochondria and nuclear pores. Using two unbiased proteomic screens, GST pulldown and BioID, we found that VDAC1 was the top mitochondrial candidate that interacts with the filamentous nuclear pore protein RANBP2. In vitro RANBP2 CRISPR knockout, RANBP2 truncation or site-directed mutagenesis of RANBP2–VDAC1 interacting amino acids resulted in reduced mitochondria–nucleus proximity and decreased nuclear ATP and phosphocreatine levels. This was accompanied by a decline in the levels of the nuclear phosphoproteome and downregulation of pathways involved in histone modification, cellular differentiation and transcriptional regulation in vitro. Moreover, deletion of the RANBP2 C-terminal domain in vivo in mice resulted in embryonic lethality due to cardiac and neural crest differentiation defects. Collectively, these results describe a mechanism by which mitochondria directly interact with the nuclear pore complex, a phenomenon critical for regulation of nuclear energetics and cellular differentiation. Undoubtedly, additional roles of this interaction remain to be revealed. Mitochondria interact directly with the nuclear pore complex via VDAC1–RANBP2 binding to sustain nuclear ATP levels.