Covariate adjustment is an approach to improve the precision of trial analyses by adjusting for baseline variables that are prognostic of the primary endpoint. Motivated by the SEARCH Universal HIV Test-and-Treat Trial (2013-2017), we tell our story of developing, evaluating, and implementing a machine learning-based approach for covariate adjustment. We provide the rationale for as well as the practical concerns with such an approach for estimating marginal effects. Using schematics, we illustrate our procedure: targeted machine learning estimation (TMLE) with Adaptive Pre-specification. Briefly, sample-splitting is used to data-adaptively select the combination of estimators of the outcome regression (i.e., the conditional expectation of the outcome given the trial arm and covariates) and known propensity score (i.e., the conditional probability of being randomized to the intervention given the covariates) that minimizes the cross-validated variance estimate and, thereby, maximizes empirical efficiency. We discuss our approach for evaluating finite sample performance with parametric and plasmode simulations, pre-specifying the Statistical Analysis Plan, and unblinding in real-time on video conference with our colleagues from around the world. We present the results from applying our approach in the primary, pre-specified analysis of 8 recently published trials (2022-2024). We conclude with practical recommendations and an invitation to implement our approach in the primary analysis of your next trial.
Autoregressive models (ARMs) are hindered by slow sequential inference. While masked diffusion models (MDMs) offer a parallel alternative, they suffer from critical drawbacks: high computational overhead from precluding Key-Value (KV) caching, and incoherent generation arising from learning dependencies over an intractable space of token combinations. To address these limitations, we introduce ReFusion, a novel masked diffusion model that achieves superior performance and efficiency by elevating parallel decoding from the token level to a higher slot level, where each slot is a fixed-length, contiguous sub-sequence. This is achieved through an iterative ``plan-and-infill'' decoding process: a diffusion-based planning step first identifies a set of weakly dependent slots, and an autoregressive infilling step then decodes these selected slots in parallel. The slot-based design simultaneously unlocks full KV cache reuse with a unified causal framework and reduces the learning complexity from the token combination space to a manageable slot-level permutation space. Extensive experiments on seven diverse benchmarks show that ReFusion not only overwhelmingly surpasses prior MDMs with 34% performance gains and an over 18$\times$ speedup on average, but also bridges the performance gap to strong ARMs while maintaining a 2.33$\times$ average speedup.
The ability to perform multi-modal multi-hop reasoning by iteratively integrating information across various modalities and external knowledge is critical for addressing complex real-world challenges. However, existing Multi-modal Large Language Models (MLLMs) are predominantly limited to single-step reasoning, as existing benchmarks lack the complexity needed to evaluate and drive multi-hop abilities. To bridge this gap, we introduce MMhops, a novel, large-scale benchmark designed to systematically evaluate and foster multi-modal multi-hop reasoning. MMhops dataset comprises two challenging task formats, Bridging and Comparison, which necessitate that models dynamically construct complex reasoning chains by integrating external knowledge. To tackle the challenges posed by MMhops, we propose MMhops-R1, a novel multi-modal Retrieval-Augmented Generation (mRAG) framework for dynamic reasoning. Our framework utilizes reinforcement learning to optimize the model for autonomously planning reasoning paths, formulating targeted queries, and synthesizing multi-level information. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate that MMhops-R1 significantly outperforms strong baselines on MMhops, highlighting that dynamic planning and multi-modal knowledge integration are crucial for complex reasoning. Moreover, MMhops-R1 demonstrates strong generalization to tasks requiring fixed-hop reasoning, underscoring the robustness of our dynamic planning approach. In conclusion, our work contributes a challenging new benchmark and a powerful baseline model, and we will release the associated code, data, and weights to catalyze future research in this critical area.
The large-scale deployment of renewable energy sources, particularly offshore wind, requires large-scale transmission grid expansion projects to transmit the produced low-carbon power to the main demand centers. However, the planning and design of such complex projects currently lack a transparent and systematic process that system operators can follow when considering such investments in their grids. This paper identifies and classifies the main technical design constraints and considerations relevant to the planning of transmission grid expansion projects, and more specifically, electrical energy hubs. Seven key areas of interest are identified, namely network integration, HVDC technologies, costs (CAPEX, OPEX, and space requirements), electricity market design, future proofness and modular expandability, reliability-availability-maintainability, and sustainability. Each area of interest is analyzed in terms of its technical and operational relevance, with technical design constraints and considerations derived from such analysis. In addition, a hierarchical classification of the identified constraints and considerations (and therefore areas of interest) is introduced, distinguishing them between three criticality classes, namely hard constraints, main drivers, and key considerations. The dependencies between the different areas are discussed, too. Therefore, this work provides system operators and policymakers with a structured basis to support a transparent planning methodology with clear decision hierarchies for investments in transmission grid expansion projects.
Renewable energy sources play a major role in future net-zero energy systems. However, achieving energy system resilience remains challenging, since renewables depend on weather fluctuations, and future energy systems are subject to major design uncertainty. Existing literature mostly treats these types of uncertainty separately. Therefore, the assessment of uncertainties surrounding climate change and energy system design, and particularly their interactions, is insufficiently understood. To close this gap, we evaluate net load to assess energy system stress without relying on perfect foresight, while maintaining temporal and spatial correlations of the climate system. Net load is calculated from hourly historical and future climate model data translated to energy variables. To scope the extent of plausible energy systems, we consider eight different design scenarios inspired by the European Ten-Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP) and different levels of transmission expansion. We find that climate change impacts on net load are highly sensitive to the energy system design, implying that energy systems can be designed so that they are either hindered or helped by climate change. Furthermore, within a system scenario, climate change can change the frequency and seasonality of high net load events and their technological and meteorological composition. Wind-dominated systems with currently electrified heating levels, for instance, feature a 30% increase of high net load events under climate change, mostly in summer and fall, while fully electrified net zero systems are impacted by high net load events in winter and spring, which decrease by 50% with climate change. Our work thus calls for a wider perspective on energy-climate stress that captures the non-linear interactions of climate change and system design uncertainty, thereby overcoming the current focus on cold Dunkelflauten.
Reinforcement learning (RL) has achieved great success in dexterous grasping, significantly improving grasp performance and generalization from simulation to the real world. However, fine-grained functional grasping, which is essential for downstream manipulation tasks, remains underexplored and faces several challenges: the complexity of specifying goals and reward functions for functional grasps across diverse objects, the difficulty of multi-task RL exploration, and the challenge of sim-to-real transfer. In this work, we propose DemoFunGrasp for universal dexterous functional grasping. We factorize functional grasping conditions into two complementary components - grasping style and affordance - and integrate them into an RL framework that can learn to grasp any object with any functional grasping condition. To address the multi-task optimization challenge, we leverage a single grasping demonstration and reformulate the RL problem as one-step demonstration editing, substantially enhancing sample efficiency and performance. Experimental results in both simulation and the real world show that DemoFunGrasp generalizes to unseen combinations of objects, affordances, and grasping styles, outperforming baselines in both success rate and functional grasping accuracy. In addition to strong sim-to-real capability, by incorporating a vision-language model (VLM) for planning, our system achieves autonomous instruction-following grasp execution.
While existing generation and unified models excel at general image generation, they struggle with tasks requiring deep reasoning, planning, and precise data-to-visual mapping abilities beyond general scenarios. To push beyond the existing limitations, we introduce a new and challenging task: creative table visualization, requiring the model to generate an infographic that faithfully and aesthetically visualizes the data from a given table. To address this challenge, we propose ShowTable, a pipeline that synergizes MLLMs with diffusion models via a progressive self-correcting process. The MLLM acts as the central orchestrator for reasoning the visual plan and judging visual errors to provide refined instructions, the diffusion execute the commands from MLLM, achieving high-fidelity results. To support this task and our pipeline, we introduce three automated data construction pipelines for training different modules. Furthermore, we introduce TableVisBench, a new benchmark with 800 challenging instances across 5 evaluation dimensions, to assess performance on this task. Experiments demonstrate that our pipeline, instantiated with different models, significantly outperforms baselines, highlighting its effective multi-modal reasoning, generation, and error correction capabilities.
This paper presents PyCAALP (Python-based Computer-Aided Assembly Line Planning), a framework for automated Assembly Sequence Planning (ASP) and Production Line Planning (PLP), employing a graph-based approach to model components and joints within production modules. The framework integrates kinematic boundary conditions, such as potential part collisions, to guarantee the feasibility of automated assembly planning. The developed algorithm computes all feasible production sequences, integrating modules for detecting spatial relationships and formulating geometric constraints. The algorithm incorporates additional attributes, including handling feasibility, tolerance matching, and joint compatibility, to manage the high combinatorial complexity inherent in assembly sequence generation. Heuristics, such as Single-Piece Flow assembly and geometrical constraint enforcement, are utilized to further refine the solution space, facilitating more efficient planning for complex assemblies. The PLP stage is formulated as a Mixed-Integer Program (MIP), balancing the total times of a fixed number of manufacturing stations. While some complexity reduction techniques may sacrifice optimality, they significantly reduce the MIPs computational time. Furthermore, the framework enables customization of engineering constraints and supports a flexible trade-off between ASP and PLP. The open-source nature of the framework, available at https://github.com/TUM-utg/PyCAALP, promotes further collaboration and adoption in both industrial and production research applications.
Laser Wakefield Acceleration (LWFA) is a promising approach for producing high-brightness electron beams in the GeV energy range, offering significant potential for compact next-generation accelerator facilities. In this work, we present a computational study of LWFA in a specially designed single-stage capillary gas-cell target aimed at producing high-quality, GeV-class electron beams. The capillary cell includes a short (~2 mm) injection region at the entrance filled with a helium (He) and nitrogen (N2 ) gas mixture. This is followed by a longer (~12 mm) pure He section, which provides the required acceleration length and limits continuous ionization injection, thereby significantly reducing the energy spread of the accelerated beam. Hydrodynamic simulations are performed to optimize the capillary geometry and generate the required two-section gas-pressure profile. The resulting gas-density distributions for various cases are then directly incorporated in Particle-In-Cell (PIC) simulations to study LWFA. In particular, our hydrodynamic simulations demonstrate how tailored density profiles with longitudinal density tapering in the acceleration section can be realized in a capillary gas cell, while the corresponding PIC simulations reveal how these profiles influence the acceleration process and the resulting beam quality. Using a 100 TW-class laser system with parameters relevant to the L2-DUHA laser at the ELI Beamlines Facility, the PIC results demonstrate electron acceleration to mean energies exceeding 1.0 GeV with high-quality beam properties. Self-injected He electrons are also observed, and their impact on the main beam quality is evaluated. The findings of this study provide valuable insights for upcoming LWFA experiments planned within the EuPRAXIA Project at the ELI Beamlines Facility.
Driven by the ongoing energy transition, shared mobility service providers are emerging actors in electrical power systems which aim to shift combustion-based mobility to electric paradigm. In the meantime, Energy Communities are deployed to enhance the local usage of distributed renewable production. As both ators share the same goal of satisfying the demand at the lowest cost, they could take advantage of their complementarity and coordinate their decisions to enhance each other operation. This paper presents an original Mixed-Integer Second Order Cone Programming long-term Electric Vehicle fleet planning optimization problem that integrates the coordination with a Renewable Energy Community and Vehicle-to-Grid capability. This model is used to assess the economic, energy, and grid performances of their collaboration in a 21 buses low-voltage distribution network. Key results show that, both actors coordination can help reducing the yearly cost up to 11.3 % compared to their stand-alone situation and that it may reduce the stress on the substation transformer by 46 % through the activation of the inherent EVs flexibility when subject to peak penalties from the grid operator.
Imitation learning (IL) has emerged as a central paradigm in autonomous driving. While IL excels in matching expert behavior in open-loop settings by minimizing per-step prediction errors, its performance degrades unexpectedly in closed-loop due to the gradual accumulation of small, often imperceptible errors over time.Over successive planning cycles, these errors compound, potentially resulting in severe failures.Current research efforts predominantly rely on increasingly sophisticated network architectures or high-fidelity training datasets to enhance the robustness of IL planners against error accumulation, focusing on the state-level robustness at a single time point. However, autonomous driving is inherently a continuous-time process, and leveraging the temporal scale to enhance robustness may provide a new perspective for addressing this issue.To this end, we propose a method termed Sequence of Experts (SoE), a temporal alternation policy that enhances closed-loop performance without increasing model size or data requirements. Our experiments on large-scale autonomous driving benchmarks nuPlan demonstrate that SoE method consistently and significantly improves the performance of all the evaluated models, and achieves state-of-the-art performance.This module may provide a key and widely applicable support for improving the training efficiency of autonomous driving models.
Diffusion models have recently emerged as powerful tools for robot motion planning by capturing the multi-modal distribution of feasible trajectories. However, their extension to multi-robot settings with flexible, language-conditioned task specifications remains limited. Furthermore, current diffusion-based approaches incur high computational cost during inference and struggle with generalization because they require explicit construction of environment representations and lack mechanisms for reasoning about geometric reachability. To address these limitations, we present Language-Conditioned Heat-Inspired Diffusion (LCHD), an end-to-end vision-based framework that generates language-conditioned, collision-free trajectories. LCHD integrates CLIP-based semantic priors with a collision-avoiding diffusion kernel serving as a physical inductive bias that enables the planner to interpret language commands strictly within the reachable workspace. This naturally handles out-of-distribution scenarios -- in terms of reachability -- by guiding robots toward accessible alternatives that match the semantic intent, while eliminating the need for explicit obstacle information at inference time. Extensive evaluations on diverse real-world-inspired maps, along with real-robot experiments, show that LCHD consistently outperforms prior diffusion-based planners in success rate, while reducing planning latency.
The scaling of computation throughput continues to outpace improvements in memory bandwidth, making many deep learning workloads memory-bound. Kernel fusion is a key technique to alleviate this problem, but the fusion strategies of existing compilers and frameworks are limited to using local scratchpad memory. When the intermediate results exceed the limited capacity (such as FFN), the fusion fails. Although modern GPUs (like the NVIDIA H100) now incorporate an inter-core connection mechanism known as Distributed Shared Memory(DSM)--providing a larger, high-bandwidth, and low-latency on-chip memory pool--this hardware potential has yet to be exploited by software frameworks. To bridge this gap, we present FlashFuser, the first compiler framework to utilize inter-core connection for kernel fusion on modern GPUs. FlashFuser extends established fusion techniques to the DSM domain through three core contributions. First, we propose a powerful DSM-based communication abstraction that formalizes complex cluster-based data exchange patterns, such as reduce, shuffle and multiply. Second, we introduce a dataflow analyzer that generalizes loop scheduling, resource mapping, and tile selection to the distributed memory hierarchy; it determines the optimal execution order and tile sizes by quantifying data movement across memory levels. Finally, FlashFuser integrates these components into a unified search engine that employs analytical cost modeling and DSM-aware pruning strategies to efficiently discover the optimal execution plan. Our evaluation on an NVIDIA H100 GPU shows that FlashFuser reduces memory access by 58% and delivers kernel speedups of 3.3x against highly-tuned libraries and 4.1x against state-of-the-art compilers, resulting in a 1.24x end-to-end speedup.
This paper presents a method to predict the evolution of a complex traffic scenario with multiple objects. The current state of the scenario is assumed to be known from sensors and the prediction is taking into account various hypotheses about the behavior of traffic participants. This way, the uncertainties regarding the behavior of traffic participants can be modelled in detail. In the first part of this paper a model-based approach is presented to compute Predicted-Occupancy Grids (POG), which are introduced as a grid-based probabilistic representation of the future scenario hypotheses. However, due to the large number of possible trajectories for each traffic participant, the model-based approach comes with a very high computational load. Thus, a machine-learning approach is adopted for the computation of POGs. This work uses a novel grid-based representation of the current state of the traffic scenario and performs the mapping to POGs. This representation consists of augmented cells in an occupancy grid. The adopted machine-learning approach is based on the Random Forest algorithm. Simulations of traffic scenarios are performed to compare the machine-learning with the model-based approach. The results are promising and could enable the real-time computation of POGs for vehicle safety applications. With this detailed modelling of uncertainties, crucial components in vehicle safety systems like criticality estimation and trajectory planning can be improved.
Although multi-modal large language models (MLLMs) have shown strong capabilities across diverse domains, their application in generating fine-grained 3D perception and prediction outputs in autonomous driving remains underexplored. In this paper, we propose DrivePI, a novel spatial-aware 4D MLLM that serves as a unified Vision-Language-Action (VLA) framework that is also compatible with vision-action (VA) models. Our method jointly performs spatial understanding, 3D perception (i.e., 3D occupancy), prediction (i.e., occupancy flow), and planning (i.e., action outputs) in parallel through end-to-end optimization. To obtain both precise geometric information and rich visual appearance, our approach integrates point clouds, multi-view images, and language instructions within a unified MLLM architecture. We further develop a data engine to generate text-occupancy and text-flow QA pairs for 4D spatial understanding. Remarkably, with only a 0.5B Qwen2.5 model as MLLM backbone, DrivePI as a single unified model matches or exceeds both existing VLA models and specialized VA models. Specifically, compared to VLA models, DrivePI outperforms OpenDriveVLA-7B by 2.5% mean accuracy on nuScenes-QA and reduces collision rate by 70% over ORION (from 0.37% to 0.11%) on nuScenes. Against specialized VA models, DrivePI surpasses FB-OCC by 10.3 RayIoU for 3D occupancy on OpenOcc, reduces the mAVE from 0.591 to 0.509 for occupancy flow on OpenOcc, and achieves 32% lower L2 error than VAD (from 0.72m to 0.49m) for planning on nuScenes. Code will be available at https://github.com/happinesslz/DrivePI
Physics-aware driving world model is essential for drive planning, out-of-distribution data synthesis, and closed-loop evaluation. However, existing methods often rely on a single diffusion model to directly map driving actions to videos, which makes learning difficult and leads to physically inconsistent outputs. To overcome these challenges, we propose GenieDrive, a novel framework designed for physics-aware driving video generation. Our approach starts by generating 4D occupancy, which serves as a physics-informed foundation for subsequent video generation. 4D occupancy contains rich physical information, including high-resolution 3D structures and dynamics. To facilitate effective compression of such high-resolution occupancy, we propose a VAE that encodes occupancy into a latent tri-plane representation, reducing the latent size to only 58% of that used in previous methods. We further introduce Mutual Control Attention (MCA) to accurately model the influence of control on occupancy evolution, and we jointly train the VAE and the subsequent prediction module in an end-to-end manner to maximize forecasting accuracy. Together, these designs yield a 7.2% improvement in forecasting mIoU at an inference speed of 41 FPS, while using only 3.47 M parameters. Additionally, a Normalized Multi-View Attention is introduced in the video generation model to generate multi-view driving videos with guidance from our 4D occupancy, significantly improving video quality with a 20.7% reduction in FVD. Experiments demonstrate that GenieDrive enables highly controllable, multi-view consistent, and physics-aware driving video generation.
Recent advances in coding agents suggest rapid progress toward autonomous software development, yet existing benchmarks fail to rigorously evaluate the long-horizon capabilities required to build complete software systems. Most prior evaluations focus on localized code generation, scaffolded completion, or short-term repair tasks, leaving open the question of whether agents can sustain coherent reasoning, planning, and execution over the extended horizons demanded by real-world repository construction. To address this gap, we present NL2Repo Bench, a benchmark explicitly designed to evaluate the long-horizon repository generation ability of coding agents. Given only a single natural-language requirements document and an empty workspace, agents must autonomously design the architecture, manage dependencies, implement multi-module logic, and produce a fully installable Python library. Our experiments across state-of-the-art open- and closed-source models reveal that long-horizon repository generation remains largely unsolved: even the strongest agents achieve below 40% average test pass rates and rarely complete an entire repository correctly. Detailed analysis uncovers fundamental long-horizon failure modes, including premature termination, loss of global coherence, fragile cross-file dependencies, and inadequate planning over hundreds of interaction steps. NL2Repo Bench establishes a rigorous, verifiable testbed for measuring sustained agentic competence and highlights long-horizon reasoning as a central bottleneck for the next generation of autonomous coding agents.
CLIPS is a rule-based programming language for building knowledge-driven applications, well suited for the complex task of coordinating autonomous robots. Inspired by the CLIPS-Executive originally developed for the lesser known Fawkes robotics framework, we present an Integration of CLIPS into the ROS ecosystem. Additionally, we show the flexibility of CLIPS by describing a PDDL-based planning framework integration.
We address the problem of coordinating a team of robots to cover an unknown environment while ensuring safe operation and avoiding collisions with non-cooperative agents. Traditional coverage strategies often rely on simplified assumptions, such as known or convex environments and static density functions, and struggle to adapt to real-world scenarios, especially when humans are involved. In this work, we propose a human-aware coverage framework based on Model Predictive Control (MPC), namely HMPCC, where human motion predictions are integrated into the planning process. By anticipating human trajectories within the MPC horizon, robots can proactively coordinate their actions %avoid redundant exploration, and adapt to dynamic conditions. The environment is modeled as a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM), representing regions of interest. Team members operate in a fully decentralized manner, without relying on explicit communication, an essential feature in hostile or communication-limited scenarios. Our results show that human trajectory forecasting enables more efficient and adaptive coverage, improving coordination between human and robotic agents.
Accurate thyroid nodule segmentation in ultrasound images is critical for diagnosis and treatment planning. However, ambiguous boundaries between nodules and surrounding tissues, size variations, and the scarcity of annotated ultrasound data pose significant challenges for automated segmentation. Existing deep learning models struggle to incorporate contextual information from the thyroid gland and generalize effectively across diverse cases. To address these challenges, we propose SSMT-Net, a Semi-Supervised Multi-Task Transformer-based Network that leverages unlabeled data to enhance Transformer-centric encoder feature extraction capability in an initial unsupervised phase. In the supervised phase, the model jointly optimizes nodule segmentation, gland segmentation, and nodule size estimation, integrating both local and global contextual features. Extensive evaluations on the TN3K and DDTI datasets demonstrate that SSMT-Net outperforms state-of-the-art methods, with higher accuracy and robustness, indicating its potential for real-world clinical applications.
The transition to electric transportation is a key enabler for intelligent and sustainable cities; however, inadequate charging infrastructure remains a major barrier to large-scale electric vehicle (EV) adoption. This paper presents a scalable Electric Road System (ERS) architecture that enables Dynamic Wireless Charging (DWC) of EVs during motion. The proposed framework integrates inductive charging coils embedded in road pavement, real-time vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication, and adaptive energy management coordinated with smart grid systems. Modular road segments with a standardized charging process are employed to ensure scalability across urban corridors and interoperability among different EV platforms. System performance is evaluated using a co-simulation framework combining MATLAB-based power analysis with traffic inputs generated in SUMO. Key performance metrics include charging efficiency, energy cost per kilometer, and battery lifecycle improvement. Simulation results indicate a potential reduction in range anxiety and an increase in battery lifespan due to frequent shallow charging cycles. The study further discusses deployment challenges, policy considerations, and energy distribution strategies aligned with climate-resilient urban development. A case study of a tier-1 Indian city is presented to analyze the cost-benefit trade-offs of retrofitting high-density urban corridors with ERS. The proposed framework provides a practical foundation for next-generation EV infrastructure planning in smart cities.
Cardinality estimation (CE), the task of predicting the result size of queries is a critical component of query optimization. Accurate estimates are essential for generating efficient query execution plans. Recently, machine learning techniques have been applied to CE, broadly categorized into query-driven and data-driven approaches. Data-driven methods learn the joint distribution of data, while query-driven methods construct regression models that map query features to cardinalities. Ideally, a CE technique should strike a balance among three key factors: accuracy, efficiency, and memory footprint. However, existing state-of-the-art models often fail to achieve this balance. To address this, we propose CoLSE, a hybrid learned approach for single-table cardinality estimation. CoLSE directly models the joint probability over queried intervals using a novel algorithm based on copula theory and integrates a lightweight neural network to correct residual estimation errors. Experimental results show that CoLSE achieves a favorable trade-off among accuracy, training time, inference latency, and model size, outperforming existing state-of-the-art methods.
Embodied agents face a critical dilemma that end-to-end models lack interpretability and explicit 3D reasoning, while modular systems ignore cross-component interdependencies and synergies. To bridge this gap, we propose the Dynamic 3D Vision-Language-Planning Model (D3D-VLP). Our model introduces two key innovations: 1) A Dynamic 3D Chain-of-Thought (3D CoT) that unifies planning, grounding, navigation, and question answering within a single 3D-VLM and CoT pipeline; 2) A Synergistic Learning from Fragmented Supervision (SLFS) strategy, which uses a masked autoregressive loss to learn from massive and partially-annotated hybrid data. This allows different CoT components to mutually reinforce and implicitly supervise each other. To this end, we construct a large-scale dataset with 10M hybrid samples from 5K real scans and 20K synthetic scenes that are compatible with online learning methods such as RL and DAgger. Our D3D-VLP achieves state-of-the-art results on multiple benchmarks, including Vision-and-Language Navigation (R2R-CE, REVERIE-CE, NavRAG-CE), Object-goal Navigation (HM3D-OVON), and Task-oriented Sequential Grounding and Navigation (SG3D). Real-world mobile manipulation experiments further validate the effectiveness.
In this paper, we propose a method for generating layouts for image-based advertisements by leveraging a Vision-Language Model (VLM). Conventional advertisement layout techniques have predominantly relied on saliency mapping to detect salient regions within a background image, but such approaches often fail to fully account for the image's detailed composition and semantic content. To overcome this limitation, our method harnesses a VLM to recognize the products and other elements depicted in the background and to inform the placement of text and logos. The proposed layout-generation pipeline consists of two steps. In the first step, the VLM analyzes the image to identify object types and their spatial relationships, then produces a text-based "placement plan" based on this analysis. In the second step, that plan is rendered into the final layout by generating HTML-format code. We validated the effectiveness of our approach through evaluation experiments, conducting both quantitative and qualitative comparisons against existing methods. The results demonstrate that by explicitly considering the background image's content, our method produces noticeably higher-quality advertisement layouts.
Patch foraging involves the deliberate and planned process of determining the optimal time to depart from a resource-rich region and investigate potentially more beneficial alternatives. The Marginal Value Theorem (MVT) is frequently used to characterize this process, offering an optimality model for such foraging behaviors. Although this model has been widely used to make predictions in behavioral ecology, discovering the computational mechanisms that facilitate the emergence of optimal patch-foraging decisions in biological foragers remains under investigation. Here, we show that artificial foragers equipped with learned world models naturally converge to MVT-aligned strategies. Using a model-based reinforcement learning agent that acquires a parsimonious predictive representation of its environment, we demonstrate that anticipatory capabilities, rather than reward maximization alone, drive efficient patch-leaving behavior. Compared with standard model-free RL agents, these model-based agents exhibit decision patterns similar to many of their biological counterparts, suggesting that predictive world models can serve as a foundation for more explainable and biologically grounded decision-making in AI systems. Overall, our findings highlight the value of ecological optimality principles for advancing interpretable and adaptive AI.
Accurate subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) prediction of extreme events is critical for resource planning and disaster mitigation under accelerating climate change. However, such predictions remain challenging due to complex multi-sphere interactions and intrinsic atmospheric uncertainty. Here we present TianXing-S2S, a multi-sphere coupled probabilistic model for global S2S daily ensemble forecast. TianXing-S2S first encodes diverse multi-sphere predictors into a compact latent space, then employs a diffusion model to generate daily ensemble forecasts. A novel coupling module based on optimal transport (OT) is incorporated in the denoiser to optimize the interactions between atmospheric and multi-sphere boundary conditions. Across key atmospheric variables, TianXing-S2S outperforms both the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) S2S system and FuXi-S2S in 45-day daily-mean ensemble forecasts at 1.5 resolution. Our model achieves skillful subseasonal prediction of extreme events including heat waves and anomalous precipitation, identifying soil moisture as a critical precursor signal. Furthermore, we demonstrate that TianXing-S2S can generate stable rollout forecasts up to 180 days, establishing a robust framework for S2S research in a warming world.
The Mega-MUSE Nearby Galaxy Serendipity Survey is a White Paper in response to the ESO Expanding Horizons Call for Ideas. It is based on the notion that novel observing facilities for astronomy almost always make discoveries that were not anticipated at the time of planning and conceptual design. Unlike other surveys it is not targeting the solution of a single specific astrophysical problem, but enables the exploitation of data obtained from other surveys in Local Group and Local Volume galaxies to clarify open science questions that cannot be solved otherwise. The most prominent objectives are to obtain solid statistics of rare stars and gaseous nebulae as well as their properties that are not accessible in the Milky Way disk due to extinction and selection effects, and the discovery of as yet unknown phenomena.
Many cable management tasks involve separating out the different cables and removing tangles. Automating this task is challenging because cables are deformable and can have combinations of knots and multiple interwoven segments. Prior works have focused on untying knots in one cable, which is one subtask of cable management. However, in this paper, we focus on a different subtask called multi-cable unweaving, which refers to removing the intersections among multiple interwoven cables to separate them and facilitate further manipulation. We propose a method that utilizes visual feedback to unweave a bundle of loosely entangled cables. We formulate cable unweaving as a pick-and-place problem, where the grasp position is selected from discrete nodes in a graph-based cable state representation. Our cable state representation encodes both topological and geometric information about the cables from the visual image. To predict future cable states and identify valid actions, we present a novel state transition model that takes into account the straightening and bending of cables during manipulation. Using this state transition model, we select between two high-level action primitives and calculate predicted immediate costs to optimize the lower-level actions. We experimentally demonstrate that iterating the above perception-planning-action process enables unweaving electric cables and shoelaces with an 84% success rate on average.
We present the Plan for Robust and Accurate Potentials (PRAPs), a software package for training and using moment tensor potentials (MTPs) in concert with the Machine Learned Interatomic Potentials (MLIP) software package. PRAPs provides an automated workflow to train MTPs using active learning procedures, and a variety of utilities to ease and improve workflows when utilizing the MLIP software. PRAPs was originally developed in the context of crystal structure prediction, in which one calculates convex hulls and predicts low energy metastable and thermodynamically stable structures, but the potentials PRAPs develops are not limited to such applications. PRAPs produces two potentials, one capable of rough estimates of the energies, forces and stresses of almost any chemical structure in the specified compositional space -- the Robust Potential -- and a second potential intended to provide more accurate descriptions of ground state and metastable structures -- the Accurate Potential. We also present a Python library, mliputils, designed to assist users in working with the chemical structural files used by the MLIP package.
Many aerial tasks involving quadrotors demand both instant reactivity and long-horizon planning. High-fidelity models enable accurate control but are too slow for long horizons; low-fidelity planners scale but degrade closed-loop performance. We present Unique, a unified MPC that cascades models of different fidelity within a single optimization: a short-horizon, high-fidelity model for accurate control, and a long-horizon, low-fidelity model for planning. We align costs across horizons, derive feasibility-preserving thrust and body-rate constraints for the point-mass model, and introduce transition constraints that match the different states, thrust-induced acceleration, and jerk-body-rate relations. To prevent local minima emerging from nonsmooth clutter, we propose a 3D progressive smoothing schedule that morphs norm-based obstacles along the horizon. In addition, we deploy parallel randomly initialized MPC solvers to discover lower-cost local minima on the long, low-fidelity horizon. In simulation and real flights, under equal computational budgets, Unique improves closed-loop position or velocity tracking by up to 75% compared with standard MPC and hierarchical planner-tracker baselines. Ablations and Pareto analyses confirm robust gains across horizon variations, constraint approximations, and smoothing schedules.