GenAI4ELab/papercli-papers huggingface dataset:
Motion-Aligned Word Embeddings for Text-to-Motion Generation
Authors: Ke Han; Yueming Lyu; Nicu Sebe
Venue: ICLR 2026 (ICLR 2026 Poster)

Abstract: Existing text-to-motion (T2M) generation models typically rely on pretrained large language models to encode textual inputs. However, these models, trained on generic text corpora, lack explicit alignment between motion-related words (e.g., "clockwise'', "quickly'') and human skeletal movements. This misalignment, fundamentally rooted in the word embedding layers, severely limits the ability of T2M models to understand and generalize fine-grained motion semantics. To tackle this issue, we propose Motion-Aligned Text Encoding (MATE), a novel framework that explicitly incorporates motion semantics into the word embedding layers of large language models to enhance text-motion alignment for motion generation. To address the challenge of inherent semantic entanglement in motion sequences, MATE introduces two key components: 1) a motion localization strategy that establishes localized correspondences between sub-texts and motion segments, enabling soft attention guidance for semantic localization; and 2) a motion disentanglement module that isolates word-specific motion semantics via contrastive kinematic prototypes, ensuring word-level alignment between linguistic and kinematic representations. Remarkably, language models enhanced with MATE can be seamlessly integrated into existing T2M methods, significantly surpassing state-of-the-art performance on two standard benchmarks with minimal modifications.
Mirror Flow Matching with Heavy-Tailed Priors for Generative Modeling on Convex Domains
Authors: Yunrui Guan; Krishna Balasubramanian; Shiqian Ma
Venue: ICLR 2026 (ICLR 2026 Poster)

Abstract: We study generative modeling on convex domains using flow matching and mirror maps, and identify two fundamental challenges. First, standard log-barrier mirror maps induce heavy-tailed dual distributions, leading to ill-posed dynamics. Second, coupling with Gaussian priors performs poorly when matching heavy-tailed targets. To address these issues, we propose Mirror Flow Matching based on a \emph{regularized mirror map} that controls dual tail behavior and guarantees finite moments, together with coupling to a Student-$t$ prior that aligns with heavy-tailed targets and stabilizes training. We provide theoretical guarantees, including spatial Lipschitzness and temporal regularity of the velocity field, Wasserstein convergence rates for flow matching with Student-$t$ priors and primal-space guarantees for constrained generation, under $\varepsilon$-accurate learned velocity fields. Empirically, our method outperforms baselines in synthetic convex-domain simulations and achieves competitive sample quality on real-world constrained generative tasks.
Learning Exposure Mapping Functions for Inferring Heterogeneous Peer Effects
Authors: Shishir Adhikari; Sourav Medya; Elena Zheleva
Venue: ICLR 2026 (ICLR 2026 Poster)

Abstract: Peer effect refers to the difference in counterfactual outcomes for a unit resulting from different levels of peer exposure, the extent to which the unit is exposed to the treatments, actions, or behaviors of its peers. In practice, peer exposure is typically captured through an explicitly defined exposure mapping function that aggregates peer treatments and outputs peer exposure. Exposure mapping functions range from simple functions like the number or fraction of treated friends to more sophisticated functions that allow for different peers to exert different degrees of influence. However, the true function is rarely known in practice and when the function is misspecified, this leads to biased causal effect estimation. To address this problem, the focus of our work is to move away from the need to explicitly define an exposure mapping function and instead introduce a framework that allows learning this function automatically. We develop EGONETGNN, a graph neural network (GNN), for heterogeneous peer effect estimation that automatically learns the appropriate exposure mapping function and allows for complex peer exposure mechanisms that involve not only peer treatments but also attributes of the local neighborhood, including node, edge, and structural attributes. We theoretically and empirically show that GNN models that use peer exposure based on the number or fraction of treated peers or learn peer exposure naively face difficulty accounting for such influence mechanisms. Our evaluation on synthetic and semi-synthetic network data shows that our method is more robust to different unknown underlying influence mechanisms when compared to state-of-the-art baselines.
Alignment-Weighted DPO:  A principled reasoning approach to improve safety alignment
Authors: Mengxuan Hu; Vivek Datla; Anoop Kumar; Zihan Guan; Sheng Li; Alfy Samuel; Daben Liu
Venue: ICLR 2026 (ICLR 2026 Poster)

Abstract: Recent advances in alignment techniques such as Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT), Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF), and Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) have improved the safety of large language models (LLMs). However, these LLMs remain vulnerable to jailbreak attacks that disguise harmful intent through indirect or deceptive phrasing. Using causal intervention, we empirically demonstrate that this vulnerability stems from shallow alignment mechanisms that lack deep reasoning, often rejecting harmful prompts without truly understanding why they are harmful. To mitigate this vulnerability, we propose enhancing alignment through reasoning-aware post-training. We construct and release a novel Chain-of-Thought (CoT) fine-tuning dataset that includes both utility-oriented and safety-critical prompts with step-by-step rationales. Fine-tuning on this dataset encourages models to produce principled refusals grounded in reasoning, outperforming standard SFT baselines. Furthermore, inspired by failure patterns in CoT fine-tuning, we introduce **Alignment-Weighted DPO**, which targets the most problematic parts of an output by assigning different preference weights to the reasoning and final-answer segments. This produces finer-grained, targeted updates than vanilla DPO and improves robustness to diverse jailbreak strategies. Extensive experiments across multiple safety and utility benchmarks show that our method consistently improves alignment robustness while maintaining overall model utility.
Graphon Cross-Validation: Assessing Models on Network Data
Authors: Huimin Cheng; Yongkai Chen; Ping Ma; Wenxuan Zhong
Venue: ICLR 2026 (ICLR 2026 Poster)

Abstract: Graphon models have emerged as powerful tools for modeling complex network structures by capturing connection probabilities among nodes. A key challenge in their application lies in accurately characterizing the graphon function, particularly with respect to parameters that govern its smoothness, which significantly impact the estimation accuracy. In this article, we propose a novel graphon cross-validation method for selecting tuning parameters and estimation approaches.
Our method is both theoretically sound and computationally efficient.
We show that our proposed cross-validation score is asymptotically parallel to the estimation error. Through extensive simulations and real-world applications, we demonstrate that our method consistently delivers superior computational efficiency and accuracy.
RESCUE: Retrieval Augmented Secure Code Generation
Authors: Jiahao Shi; Tianyi Zhang
Venue: ICLR 2026 (ICLR 2026 Poster)

Abstract: Despite recent advances, Large Language Models (LLMs) still generate vulnerable code. 
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) has the potential to enhance LLMs for secure code generation by incorporating external security knowledge. However, the conventional RAG design struggles with the noise of raw security-related documents, and existing retrieval methods overlook the significant security semantics implicitly embedded in task descriptions.
To address these issues, we propose \textsc{Rescue}, a new RAG framework for secure code generation with two key innovations. 
First, we propose a hybrid knowledge base construction method that combines LLM-assisted cluster-then-summarize distillation with program slicing, producing both high-level security guidelines and concise, security-focused code examples. Second, we design a hierarchical multi-faceted retrieval that traverses the constructed knowledge base from top to bottom and integrates multiple security-critical facts at each hierarchical level, ensuring comprehensive and accurate retrieval. 
We evaluated \textsc{Rescue} on four benchmarks and compared it with five state-of-the-art secure code generation methods on six LLMs. The results demonstrate that \textsc{Rescue} improves the SecurePass@1 metric by an average of 4.8 points, establishing a new state-of-the-art performance for security. Furthermore, we performed in-depth analysis and ablation studies to rigorously validate the effectiveness of individual components in \textsc{Rescue}. Our code is available at \url{https://github.com/steven1518/RESCUE}.
CogniMap3D: Cognitive 3D Mapping and Rapid Retrieval
Authors: Feiran Wang; Junyi Wu; Dawen Cai; Yuan Hong; Yan Yan
Venue: ICLR 2026 (ICLR 2026 Poster)

Abstract: We present CogniMap3D, a bioinspired framework for dynamic 3D scene understanding and reconstruction that emulates human cognitive processes. Our approach maintains a persistent memory bank of static scenes, enabling efficient spatial knowledge storage and rapid retrieval. CogniMap3D integrates three core capabilities: a multi-stage motion cue framework for identifying dynamic objects, a cognitive mapping system for storing, recalling, and updating static scenes across multiple visits, and a factor graph optimization strategy for refining camera poses. Given an image stream, our model identifies dynamic regions through motion cues with depth and camera pose priors, then matches static elements against its memory bank. When revisiting familiar locations, CogniMap3D retrieves stored scenes, relocates cameras, and updates memory with new observations. Evaluations on video depth estimation, camera pose reconstruction, and 3D mapping tasks demonstrate its state-of-the-art performance, while effectively supporting continuous scene understanding across extended sequences and multiple visits.
EventFlash: Towards Efficient MLLMs for Event-Based Vision
Authors: Shaoyu Liu; Jianing Li; guanghui zhao; Yunjian Zhang; Wen Jiang; Ming Li; Xiangyang Ji
Venue: ICLR 2026 (ICLR 2026 Poster)

Abstract: Event-based multimodal large language models (MLLMs) enable robust perception in high-speed and low-light scenarios, addressing key limitations of frame-based MLLMs. However, current event-based MLLMs often rely on dense image-like processing paradigms, overlooking the spatiotemporal sparsity of event streams and resulting in high computational cost. In this paper, we propose EventFlash, the first efficient MLLM to explore spatiotemporal token sparsification for reducing data redundancy and accelerating inference. Technically, we first build EventMind, a large-scale and scene-diverse dataset with over 500k instruction sets, providing both short and long event stream sequences to support our curriculum training strategy. Then, we present the adaptive temporal window aggregation module for efficient temporal sampling, which adaptively compresses temporal tokens while retaining key temporal cues. Finally, the sparse density-guided attention module is designed to improve spatial token efficiency by selecting informative regions and suppressing empty or sparse areas. Experimental results show that EventFlash achieves a 12.4x throughput improvement over the baseline (EventFlash-Zero) while maintaining comparable performance. It supports long-range event stream processing with up to 1,000 bins, significantly outperforming EventGPT’s 5-bin limit. We believe EventFlash serves as an efficient foundation model for event-based vision.
Revisiting Sharpness-Aware Minimization: A More Faithful and Effective Implementation
Authors: Jianlong Chen; Zhiming Zhou
Venue: ICLR 2026 (ICLR 2026 Poster)

Abstract: Sharpness-Aware Minimization (SAM) enhances generalization by minimizing the maximum training loss within a predefined neighborhood around the parameters. However, its practical implementation approximates this as gradient ascent(s) followed by applying the gradient at the ascent point to update the current parameters. This practice can be justified as approximately optimizing the objective by neglecting the (full) derivative of the ascent point with respect to the current parameters. Nevertheless, a direct and intuitive understanding of why using the gradient at the ascent point to update the current parameters works superiorly, despite being computed at a shifted location, is still lacking. Our work bridges this gap by proposing a novel and intuitive interpretation. We show that the gradient at the single-step ascent point, when applied to the current parameters, provides a better approximation of the direction from the current parameters toward the maximum within the local neighborhood than the local gradient. This improved approximation thereby enables a more direct escape from the maximum within the local neighborhood. Nevertheless, our analysis further reveals two issues. First, the approximation by the gradient at the single-step ascent point is often inaccurate. Second, the approximation quality may degrade as the number of ascent steps increases. To address these limitations, we propose in this paper eXplicit Sharpness-Aware Minimization (XSAM). It tackles the first by explicitly estimating the direction of the maximum during training, and addresses the second by crafting a search space that effectively leverages the gradient information at the multi-step ascent point. XSAM features a unified formulation that applies to both single-step and multi-step settings and only incurs negligible computational overhead. Extensive experiments demonstrate the consistent superiority of XSAM against existing counterparts across various models, datasets, and settings.
Dual-Scale World Memory for LLM Agents towards Hard-Exploration Problems
Authors: Minsoo Kim; seung-won hwang
Venue: ICLR 2026 (ICLR 2026 Poster)

Abstract: LLM-based agents have seen promising advances, yet are still limited in hard-exploration tasks which require agents to perform sustained exploration under sparse feedback. We present GLoW, a novel approach leveraging a dual-scale textual world memory, maintaining a trajectory frontier of high-value discoveries at the global scale, while learning from local trial-and-error in exploration through a Multi-path Advantage Reflection mechanism which infers advantage-based progress signals to guide exploration. To evaluate our framework for hard-exploration, we tackle the Jericho benchmark suite of text-based games, where GLoW achieves a new state-of-the-art performance for LLM-based approaches. Compared to state-of-the-art RL-based methods, our approach achieves comparable performance while requiring 100-800× fewer environment interactions. When scaled to stronger LLMs, GLoW surpasses all prior methods on 4 out of 6 difficult and extreme Jericho games.
Rethinking Uncertainty Estimation in LLMs: A Principled Single-Sequence Measure
Authors: Lukas Aichberger; Kajetan Schweighofer; Sepp Hochreiter
Venue: ICLR 2026 (ICLR 2026 Poster)

Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly employed in real-world applications, driving the need to evaluate the trustworthiness of their generated text. To this end, reliable uncertainty estimation is essential. Leading uncertainty estimation methods generate and analyze multiple output sequences, which is computationally expensive and impractical at scale. In this work, we inspect the theoretical foundations of these methods and explore new directions to enhance computational efficiency. Building on the framework of proper scoring rules, we find that the negative log-likelihood of the most likely output sequence constitutes a theoretically principled uncertainty measure. To approximate this alternative measure, we propose G-NLL, obtained using a single output sequence from greedy decoding. This approach streamlines uncertainty estimation while preserving theoretical rigor. Empirical results demonstrate that G-NLL achieves state-of-the-art performance across various scenarios. Our work lays the theoretical foundation for efficient and reliable uncertainty estimation in natural language generation, challenging the necessity of the prevalent methods that are more complex and resource-intensive.
InclusiveVidPose: Bridging the Pose Estimation Gap for Individuals with Limb Deficiencies in Video-Based Motion
Authors: Heming Du; Jiaying Ying; Sen Wang; Xue Li; Kaihao Zhang; Xin Yu
Venue: ICLR 2026 (ICLR 2026 Poster)

Abstract: Approximately 445.2 million individuals worldwide are living with traumatic amputations, and an estimated 31.64 million children aged 0–14 have congenital limb differences, yet they remain largely underrepresented in human pose estimation (HPE) research. Accurate HPE could significantly benefit this population in applications, such as rehabilitation monitoring and health assessment. However, the existing HPE datasets and methods assume that humans possess a full complement of upper and lower extremities and fail to model missing or altered limbs. As a result, people with limb deficiencies remain largely underrepresented, and current models cannot generalize to their unique anatomies or predict absent joints. To bridge this gap, we introduce InclusiveVidPose Dataset, the first video-based large-scale HPE dataset specific for individuals with limb deficiencies. We collect 313 videos, totaling 327k frames, and covering nearly 400 individuals with amputations, congenital limb differences, and prosthetic limbs. We adopt 8 extra keypoints at each residual limb end to capture individual anatomical variations. Under the guidance of an internationally accredited para-athletics classifier, we annotate each frame with pose keypoints, segmentation masks, bounding boxes, tracking IDs, and per-limb prosthesis status. Experiments on InclusiveVidPose highlight the limitations of the existing HPE models for individuals with limb deficiencies. We introduce a new evaluation metric, Limb-specific Confidence Consistency (LiCC), which assesses the consistency of pose estimations between residual and intact limb keypoints. We also provide a rigorous benchmark for evaluating inclusive and robust pose estimation algorithms, demonstrating that our dataset poses significant challenges. We hope InclusiveVidPose spur research toward methods that fairly and accurately serve all body types. The project website is available at: [InclusiveVidPose](https://xiaobaishu0097.github.io/InclusiveVidPose/).
LDT: Layer-Decomposition Training Makes Networks More Generalizable
Authors: Zaizuo Tang; Zongqi Yang; Yu-Bin Yang
Venue: ICLR 2026 (ICLR 2026 Poster)

Abstract: Domain generalization methods can effectively enhance network performance on test samples with unknown distributions by isolating gradients between unstable and stable parameters. However, existing methods employ relatively coarse-grained partitioning of stable versus unstable parameters, leading to misclassified unstable parameters that degrade network feature processing capabilities. We first provide a theoretical analysis of gradient perturbations caused by unstable parameters. Based on this foundation, we propose Layer-Decomposition Training (LDT), which conducts fine-grained layer-wise partitioning guided by parameter instability levels, substantially improving parameter update stability. Furthermore, to address gradient amplitude disparities within stable layers and unstable layers respectively, we introduce a Dynamic Parameter Update (DPU) strategy that adaptively determines layer-specific update coefficients according to gradient variations, optimizing feature learning efficiency. Extensive experiments across diverse tasks (super-resolution, classification, semantic segmentation) and architectures (Transformer, Mamba, CNN) demonstrate LDT's superior generalization capability. Our code is available at https://github.com/ZaizuoTang/LDT.
PLANETALIGN: A Comprehensive Python Library for Benchmarking Network Alignment
Authors: Qi Yu; Zhichen Zeng; Yuchen Yan; Zhining Liu; Baoyu Jing; Ruizhong Qiu; Ariful Azad; Hanghang Tong
Venue: ICLR 2026 (ICLR 2026 Poster)

Abstract: Network alignment (NA) aims to identify node correspondence across different networks and serves as a critical cornerstone behind various downstream multi-network learning tasks. Despite growing research in NA, there lacks a comprehensive library that facilitates the systematic development and benchmarking of NA methods. In this work, we introduce PLANETALIGN, a comprehensive Python library for network alignment that features a rich collection of built-in datasets, methods, and evaluation pipelines with easy-to-use APIs. Specifically, PLANETALIGN integrates 18 datasets and 14 NA methods with extensible APIs for easy use and development of NA methods. Our standardized evaluation pipeline encompasses a wide range of metrics, enabling a systematic assessment of the effectiveness, scalability, and robustness of NA methods. Through extensive comparative studies, we reveal practical insights into the strengths and limitations of existing NA methods. We hope that PLANETALIGN can foster a deeper understanding of the NA problem and facilitate the development and benchmarking of more effective, scalable, and robust methods in the future. The source code of PLANETALIGN is available at https://github.com/yq-leo/PlanetAlign
Characteristic Root Analysis and Regularization for Linear Time Series Forecasting
Authors: Zheng Wang; Kaixuan Zhang; Wanfang Chen; Xiaonan Lu; Longyuan Li; Tobias Schlagenhauf
Venue: ICLR 2026 (ICLR 2026 Poster)

Abstract: Time series forecasting remains a critical challenge across numerous domains, yet the effectiveness of complex models often varies unpredictably across datasets. Recent studies highlight the surprising competitiveness of simple linear models,  suggesting that their robustness and interpretability warrant deeper theoretical investigation. This paper presents a systematic study of linear models for time series forecasting, with a focus on the role of characteristic roots in temporal dynamics. We begin by analyzing the noise-free setting, where we show that characteristic roots govern long-term behavior and explain how design choices such as instance normalization and channel independence affect model capabilities. We then extend our analysis to the noisy regime, revealing that models tend to produce spurious roots. This leads to the identification of a key data-scaling property: mitigating the influence of noise requires disproportionately large training data, highlighting the need for structural regularization. To address these challenges, we propose two complementary strategies for robust root restructuring. The first uses rank reduction techniques, including Reduced-Rank Regression (RRR) and Direct Weight Rank Reduction (DWRR), to recover the low-dimensional latent dynamics. The second, a novel adaptive method called Root Purge, encourages the model to learn a noise-suppressing null space during training. Extensive experiments on standard benchmarks demonstrate the effectiveness of both approaches, validating our theoretical insights and achieving state-of-the-art results in several settings. Our findings underscore the potential of integrating classical theories for linear systems with modern learning techniques to build robust, interpretable, and data-efficient forecasting models. The code is publicly available at: https://github.com/Wangzzzzzzzz/RootPurge.