OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
ASTAR-NTU solution to AudioMOS Challenge 2025 Track1
Venue: arXiv cs.SD 2025
Year: 2025

Evaluation of text-to-music systems is constrained by the cost and availability of collecting experts for assessment. AudioMOS 2025 Challenge track 1 is created to automatically predict music impression (MI) as well as text alignment (TA) between the prompt and the generated musical piece. This paper reports our winning system, which uses a dual-branch architecture with pre-trained MuQ and RoBERTa models as audio and text encoders. A cross-attention mechanism fuses the audio and text representations. For training, we reframe the MI and TA prediction as a classification task. To incorporate the ordinal nature of MOS scores, one-hot labels are converted to a soft distribution using a Gaussian kernel. On the official test set, a single model trained with this method achieves a system-level Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient (SRCC) of 0.991 for MI and 0.952 for TA, corresponding to a relative improvement of 21.21\% in MI SRCC and 31.47\% in TA SRCC over the challenge baseline.
Modelling Interrelations Between Agile Practices: The Agile Map
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2025
Year: 2025

Agile methods are defined through guidelines comprising various practices intended to enable agile ways of working. These guidelines further comprise a specific set of agile practices aiming to enable teams for an agile way of working. However, due to its wide-spread use in practice we know that agile practices are adopted and tailored intensively, which lead to a high variety of agile practices in terms of their level of detail. Problem: A high variety of agile practices can be challenging as we do not know how different agile practices are interrelated with each other. To be more precise, tailoring and adopting agile practices may lead to the challenge, that the combinatorial use of several agile practices can only be successful to a limited extent, as practices support or even require each other for a effective use in practice. Objective: Our study aims to provide an enabler for this problem. We want to identify interrelations between agile practices and describe them in a systematic manner. Contribution: The core contribution of this paper is the Agile Map, a theoretical model describing relations between agile practices following a systematic approach aiming to provide an overview of coherences between agile practices. The model aims to support practitioners in selecting and combining agile practices in a meaningful way.
Mechanistic Interpretability of LoRA-Adapted Language Models for Nuclear Reactor Safety Applications
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2025
Year: 2025

The integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) into safety-critical domains, such as nuclear engineering, necessitates a deep understanding of their internal reasoning processes. This paper presents a novel methodology for interpreting how an LLM encodes and utilizes domain-specific knowledge, using a Boiling Water Reactor system as a case study. We adapted a general-purpose LLM (Gemma-3-1b-it) to the nuclear domain using a parameter-efficient fine-tuning technique known as Low-Rank Adaptation. By comparing the neuron activation patterns of the base model to those of the fine-tuned model, we identified a sparse set of neurons whose behavior was significantly altered during the adaptation process. To probe the causal role of these specialized neurons, we employed a neuron silencing technique. Our results demonstrate that while silencing most of these specialized neurons individually did not produce a statistically significant effect, deactivating the entire group collectively led to a statistically significant degradation in task performance. Qualitative analysis further revealed that silencing these neurons impaired the model's ability to generate detailed, contextually accurate technical information. This paper provides a concrete methodology for enhancing the transparency of an opaque black-box model, allowing domain expertise to be traced to verifiable neural circuits. This offers a pathway towards achieving nuclear-grade artificial intelligence (AI) assurance, addressing the verification and validation challenges mandated by nuclear regulatory frameworks (e.g., 10 CFR 50 Appendix B), which have limited AI deployment in safety-critical nuclear operations.
AnalogTester: A Large Language Model-Based Framework for Automatic Testbench Generation in Analog Circuit Design
Venue: arXiv cs.MA 2025
Year: 2025

Recent advancements have demonstrated the significant potential of large language models (LLMs) in analog circuit design. Nevertheless, testbench construction for analog circuits remains manual, creating a critical bottleneck in achieving fully automated design processes. Particularly when replicating circuit designs from academic papers, manual Testbench construction demands time-intensive implementation and frequent adjustments, which fails to address the dynamic diversity and flexibility requirements for automation. AnalogTester tackles automated analog design challenges through an LLM-powered pipeline: a) domain-knowledge integration, b) paper information extraction, c) simulation scheme synthesis, and d) testbench code generation with Tsinghua Electronic Design (TED). AnalogTester has demonstrated automated Testbench generation capabilities for three fundamental analog circuit types: operational amplifiers (op-amps), bandgap references (BGRs), and low-dropout regulators (LDOs), while maintaining a scalable framework for adaptation to broader circuit topologies. Furthermore, AnalogTester can generate circuit knowledge data and TED code corpus, establishing fundamental training datasets for LLM specialization in analog circuit design automation.
A New Incentive Model For Content Trust
Venue: arXiv cs.GT 2025
Year: 2025

This paper outlines an incentive-driven and decentralized approach to verifying the veracity of digital content at scale. Widespread misinformation, an explosion in AI-generated content and reduced reliance on traditional news sources demands a new approach for content authenticity and truth-seeking that is fit for a modern, digital world. By using smart contracts and digital identity to incorporate 'trust' into the reward function for published content, not just engagement, we believe that it could be possible to foster a self-propelling paradigm shift to combat misinformation through a community-based governance model. The approach described in this paper requires that content creators stake financial collateral on factual claims for an impartial jury to vet with a financial reward for contribution. We hypothesize that with the right financial and social incentive model users will be motivated to participate in crowdsourced fact-checking and content creators will place more care in their attestations. This is an exploratory paper and there are a number of open issues and questions that warrant further analysis and exploration.
SLIF-MR: Self-loop Iterative Fusion of Heterogeneous Auxiliary Information for Multimodal Recommendation
Venue: arXiv cs.IR 2025
Year: 2025

Knowledge graphs (KGs) and multimodal item information, which respectively capture relational and attribute features, play a crucial role in improving recommender system accuracy. Recent studies have attempted to integrate them via multimodal knowledge graphs (MKGs) to further enhance recommendation performance. However, existing methods typically freeze the MKG structure during training, which limits the full integration of structural information from heterogeneous graphs (e.g., KG and user-item interaction graph), and results in sub-optimal performance. To address this challenge, we propose a novel framework, termed Self-loop Iterative Fusion of Heterogeneous Auxiliary Information for Multimodal Recommendation (SLIF-MR), which leverages item representations from previous training epoch as feedback signals to dynamically optimize the heterogeneous graph structures composed of KG, multimodal item feature graph, and user-item interaction graph. Through this iterative fusion mechanism, both user and item representations are refined, thus improving the final recommendation performance. Specifically, based on the feedback item representations, SLIF-MR constructs an item-item correlation graph, then integrated into the establishment process of heterogeneous graphs as additional new structural information in a self-loop manner. Consequently, the internal structures of heterogeneous graphs are updated with the feedback item representations during training. Moreover, a semantic consistency learning strategy is proposed to align heterogeneous item representations across modalities. The experimental results show that SLIF-MR significantly outperforms existing methods, particularly in terms of accuracy and robustness.
Towards Applying Large Language Models to Complement Single-Cell Foundation Models
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2025
Year: 2025

Single-cell foundation models such as scGPT represent a significant advancement in single-cell omics, with an ability to achieve state-of-the-art performance on various downstream biological tasks. However, these models are inherently limited in that a vast amount of information in biology exists as text, which they are unable to leverage. There have therefore been several recent works that propose the use of LLMs as an alternative to single-cell foundation models, achieving competitive results. However, there is little understanding of what factors drive this performance, along with a strong focus on using LLMs as an alternative, rather than complementary approach to single-cell foundation models. In this study, we therefore investigate what biological insights contribute toward the performance of LLMs when applied to single-cell data, and introduce scMPT; a model which leverages synergies between scGPT, and single-cell representations from LLMs that capture these insights. scMPT demonstrates stronger, more consistent performance than either of its component models, which frequently have large performance gaps between each other across datasets. We also experiment with alternate fusion methods, demonstrating the potential of combining specialized reasoning models with scGPT to improve performance. This study ultimately showcases the potential for LLMs to complement single-cell foundation models and drive improvements in single-cell analysis.
MEDebiaser: A Human-AI Feedback System for Mitigating Bias in Multi-label Medical Image Classification
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2025
Year: 2025

Medical images often contain multiple labels with imbalanced distributions and co-occurrence, leading to bias in multi-label medical image classification. Close collaboration between medical professionals and machine learning practitioners has significantly advanced medical image analysis. However, traditional collaboration modes struggle to facilitate effective feedback between physicians and AI models, as integrating medical expertise into the training process via engineers can be time-consuming and labor-intensive. To bridge this gap, we introduce MEDebiaser, an interactive system enabling physicians to directly refine AI models using local explanations. By combining prediction with attention loss functions and employing a customized ranking strategy to alleviate scalability, MEDebiaser allows physicians to mitigate biases without technical expertise, reducing reliance on engineers, and thus enhancing more direct human-AI feedback. Our mechanism and user studies demonstrate that it effectively reduces biases, improves usability, and enhances collaboration efficiency, providing a practical solution for integrating medical expertise into AI-driven healthcare.
Hand Gesture Recognition for Collaborative Robots Using Lightweight Deep Learning in Real-Time Robotic Systems
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2025
Year: 2025

Direct and natural interaction is essential for intuitive human-robot collaboration, eliminating the need for additional devices such as joysticks, tablets, or wearable sensors. In this paper, we present a lightweight deep learning-based hand gesture recognition system that enables humans to control collaborative robots naturally and efficiently. This model recognizes eight distinct hand gestures with only 1,103 parameters and a compact size of 22 KB, achieving an accuracy of 93.5%. To further optimize the model for real-world deployment on edge devices, we applied quantization and pruning using TensorFlow Lite, reducing the final model size to just 7 KB. The system was successfully implemented and tested on a Universal Robot UR5 collaborative robot within a real-time robotic framework based on ROS2. The results demonstrate that even extremely lightweight models can deliver accurate and responsive hand gesture-based control for collaborative robots, opening new possibilities for natural human-robot interaction in constrained environments.
LayLens: Improving Deepfake Understanding through Simplified Explanations
Venue: arXiv cs.MM 2025
Year: 2025

This demonstration paper presents $\mathbf{LayLens}$, a tool aimed to make deepfake understanding easier for users of all educational backgrounds. While prior works often rely on outputs containing technical jargon, LayLens bridges the gap between model reasoning and human understanding through a three-stage pipeline: (1) explainable deepfake detection using a state-of-the-art forgery localization model, (2) natural language simplification of technical explanations using a vision-language model, and (3) visual reconstruction of a plausible original image via guided image editing. The interface presents both technical and layperson-friendly explanations in addition to a side-by-side comparison of the uploaded and reconstructed images. A user study with 15 participants shows that simplified explanations significantly improve clarity and reduce cognitive load, with most users expressing increased confidence in identifying deepfakes. LayLens offers a step toward transparent, trustworthy, and user-centric deepfake forensics.
Cultural Bias in Large Language Models: Evaluating AI Agents through Moral Questionnaires
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2025
Year: 2025

Are AI systems truly representing human values, or merely averaging across them? Our study suggests a concerning reality: Large Language Models (LLMs) fail to represent diverse cultural moral frameworks despite their linguistic capabilities. We expose significant gaps between AI-generated and human moral intuitions by applying the Moral Foundations Questionnaire across 19 cultural contexts. Comparing multiple state-of-the-art LLMs' origins against human baseline data, we find these models systematically homogenize moral diversity. Surprisingly, increased model size doesn't consistently improve cultural representation fidelity. Our findings challenge the growing use of LLMs as synthetic populations in social science research and highlight a fundamental limitation in current AI alignment approaches. Without data-driven alignment beyond prompting, these systems cannot capture the nuanced, culturally-specific moral intuitions. Our results call for more grounded alignment objectives and evaluation metrics to ensure AI systems represent diverse human values rather than flattening the moral landscape.
User Long-Term Multi-Interest Retrieval Model for Recommendation
Venue: arXiv cs.IR 2025
Year: 2025

User behavior sequence modeling, which captures user interest from rich historical interactions, is pivotal for industrial recommendation systems. Despite breakthroughs in ranking-stage models capable of leveraging ultra-long behavior sequences with length scaling up to thousands, existing retrieval models remain constrained to sequences of hundreds of behaviors due to two main challenges. One is strict latency budget imposed by real-time service over large-scale candidate pool. The other is the absence of target-aware mechanisms and cross-interaction architectures, which prevent utilizing ranking-like techniques to simplify long sequence modeling. To address these limitations, we propose a new framework named User Long-term Multi-Interest Retrieval Model(ULIM), which enables thousand-scale behavior modeling in retrieval stages. ULIM includes two novel components: 1)Category-Aware Hierarchical Dual-Interest Learning partitions long behavior sequences into multiple category-aware subsequences representing multi-interest and jointly optimizes long-term and short-term interests within specific interest cluster. 2)Pointer-Enhanced Cascaded Category-to-Item Retrieval introduces Pointer-Generator Interest Network(PGIN) for next-category prediction, followed by next-item retrieval upon the top-K predicted categories. Comprehensive experiments on Taobao dataset show that ULIM achieves substantial improvement over state-of-the-art methods, and brings 5.54% clicks, 11.01% orders and 4.03% GMV lift for Taobaomiaosha, a notable mini-app of Taobao.
Analysis of AI Techniques for Orchestrating Edge-Cloud Application Migration
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2025
Year: 2025

Application migration in edge-cloud system enables high QoS and cost effective service delivery. However, automatically orchestrating such migration is typically solved with heuristic approaches. Starting from the Markov Decision Process (MDP), in this paper, we identify, analyze and compare selected state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence (AI) planning and Reinforcement Learning (RL) approaches for solving the class of edge-cloud application migration problems that can be modeled as Towers of Hanoi (ToH) problems. We introduce a new classification based on state space definition and analyze the compared models also through this lense. The aim is to understand available techniques capable of orchestrating such application migration in emerging computing continuum environments.
A Variance-Reduced Cubic-Regularized Newton for Policy Optimization
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2025
Year: 2025

In this paper, we study a second-order approach to policy optimization in reinforcement learning. Existing second-order methods often suffer from suboptimal sample complexity or rely on unrealistic assumptions about importance sampling. To overcome these limitations, we propose VR-CR-PN, a variance-reduced cubic-regularized policy Newton algorithm. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first algorithm that integrates Hessian-aided variance reduction with second-order policy optimization, effectively addressing the distribution shift problem and achieving best-known sample complexity under general nonconvex conditions but without the need for importance sampling. We theoretically establish that VR-CR-PN achieves a sample complexity of $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(ε^{-3})$ to reach an $ε$-second-order stationary point, significantly improving upon the previous best result of $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(ε^{-3.5})$ under comparable assumptions. As an additional contribution, we introduce a novel Hessian estimator for the expected return function, which admits a uniform upper bound independent of the horizon length $H$, allowing the algorithm to achieve horizon-independent sample complexity.
HASSLE: A Self-Supervised Learning Enhanced Hijacking Attack on Vertical Federated Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2025
Year: 2025

Vertical Federated Learning (VFL) enables an orchestrating active party to perform a machine learning task by cooperating with passive parties that provide additional task-related features for the same training data entities. While prior research has leveraged the privacy vulnerability of VFL to compromise its integrity through a combination of label inference and backdoor attacks, their effectiveness is constrained by the low label inference precision and suboptimal backdoor injection conditions. To facilitate a more rigorous security evaluation on VFL without these limitations, we propose HASSLE, a hijacking attack framework composed of a gradient-direction-based label inference module and an adversarial embedding generation algorithm enhanced by self-supervised learning. HASSLE accurately identifies private samples associated with a targeted label using only a single known instance of that label. In the two-party scenario, it demonstrates strong performance with an attack success rate (ASR) of over 99% across four datasets, including both image and tabular modalities, and achieves 85% ASR on the more complex CIFAR-100 dataset. Evaluation of HASSLE against 8 potential defenses further highlights its significant threat while providing new insights into building a trustworthy VFL system.
Minimizing the Pretraining Gap: Domain-aligned Text-Based Person Retrieval
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2025
Year: 2025

In this work, we focus on text-based person retrieval, which aims to identify individuals based on textual descriptions. Given the significant privacy issues and the high cost associated with manual annotation, synthetic data has become a popular choice for pretraining models, leading to notable advancements. However, the considerable domain gap between synthetic pretraining datasets and real-world target datasets, characterized by differences in lighting, color, and viewpoint, remains a critical obstacle that hinders the effectiveness of the pretrain-finetune paradigm. To bridge this gap, we introduce a unified text-based person retrieval pipeline considering domain adaptation at both image and region levels. In particular, it contains two primary components, i.e., Domain-aware Diffusion (DaD) for image-level adaptation and Multi-granularity Relation Alignment (MRA) for region-level adaptation. As the name implies, Domain-aware Diffusion is to migrate the distribution of images from the pretraining dataset domain to the target real-world dataset domain, e.g., CUHK-PEDES. Subsequently, MRA performs a meticulous region-level alignment by establishing correspondences between visual regions and their descriptive sentences, thereby addressing disparities at a finer granularity. Extensive experiments show that our dual-level adaptation method has achieved state-of-the-art results on the CUHK-PEDES, ICFG-PEDES, and RSTPReid datasets, outperforming existing methodologies. The dataset, model, and code are available at https://github.com/Shuyu-XJTU/MRA.
From Wardrobe to Canvas: Wardrobe Polyptych LoRA for Part-level Controllable Human Image Generation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2025
Year: 2025

Recent diffusion models achieve personalization by learning specific subjects, allowing learned attributes to be integrated into generated images. However, personalized human image generation remains challenging due to the need for precise and consistent attribute preservation (e.g., identity, clothing details). Existing subject-driven image generation methods often require either (1) inference-time fine-tuning with few images for each new subject or (2) large-scale dataset training for generalization. Both approaches are computationally expensive and impractical for real-time applications. To address these limitations, we present Wardrobe Polyptych LoRA, a novel part-level controllable model for personalized human image generation. By training only LoRA layers, our method removes the computational burden at inference while ensuring high-fidelity synthesis of unseen subjects. Our key idea is to condition the generation on the subject's wardrobe and leverage spatial references to reduce information loss, thereby improving fidelity and consistency. Additionally, we introduce a selective subject region loss, which encourages the model to disregard some of reference images during training. Our loss ensures that generated images better align with text prompts while maintaining subject integrity. Notably, our Wardrobe Polyptych LoRA requires no additional parameters at the inference stage and performs generation using a single model trained on a few training samples. We construct a new dataset and benchmark tailored for personalized human image generation. Extensive experiments show that our approach significantly outperforms existing techniques in fidelity and consistency, enabling realistic and identity-preserving full-body synthesis.