OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Make me an Expert: Distilling from Generalist Black-Box Models into Specialized Models for Semantic Segmentation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2025
Year: 2025

The rise of Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS) democratizes access to pre-trained models via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), but also raises a fundamental question: how can local models be effectively trained using black-box models that do not expose their weights, training data, or logits, a constraint in which current domain adaptation paradigms are impractical ? To address this challenge, we introduce the Black-Box Distillation (B2D) setting, which enables local model adaptation under realistic constraints: (1) the API model is open-vocabulary and trained on large-scale general-purpose data, and (2) access is limited to one-hot predictions only. We identify that open-vocabulary models exhibit significant sensitivity to input resolution, with different object classes being segmented optimally at different scales, a limitation termed the "curse of resolution". Our method, ATtention-Guided sCaler (ATGC), addresses this challenge by leveraging DINOv2 attention maps to dynamically select optimal scales for black-box model inference. ATGC scores the attention maps with entropy to identify informative scales for pseudo-labelling, enabling effective distillation. Experiments demonstrate substantial improvements under black-box supervision across multiple datasets while requiring only one-hot API predictions. Our code is available at https://github.com/yasserben/ATGC.
LatentEdit: Adaptive Latent Control for Consistent Semantic Editing
Venue: arXiv cs.GR 2025
Year: 2025

Diffusion-based Image Editing has achieved significant success in recent years. However, it remains challenging to achieve high-quality image editing while maintaining the background similarity without sacrificing speed or memory efficiency. In this work, we introduce LatentEdit, an adaptive latent fusion framework that dynamically combines the current latent code with a reference latent code inverted from the source image. By selectively preserving source features in high-similarity, semantically important regions while generating target content in other regions guided by the target prompt, LatentEdit enables fine-grained, controllable editing. Critically, the method requires no internal model modifications or complex attention mechanisms, offering a lightweight, plug-and-play solution compatible with both UNet-based and DiT-based architectures. Extensive experiments on the PIE-Bench dataset demonstrate that our proposed LatentEdit achieves an optimal balance between fidelity and editability, outperforming the state-of-the-art method even in 8-15 steps. Additionally, its inversion-free variant further halves the number of neural function evaluations and eliminates the need for storing any intermediate variables, substantially enhancing real-time deployment efficiency.
Advanced spectral clustering for heterogeneous data in credit risk monitoring systems
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2025
Year: 2025

Heterogeneous data, which encompass both numerical financial variables and textual records, present substantial challenges for credit monitoring. To address this issue, we propose Advanced Spectral Clustering (ASC), a method that integrates financial and textual similarities through an optimized weight parameter and selects eigenvectors using a novel eigenvalue-silhouette optimization approach. Evaluated on a dataset comprising 1,428 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), ASC achieves a Silhouette score that is 18% higher than that of a single-type data baseline method. Furthermore, the resulting clusters offer actionable insights; for instance, 51% of low-risk firms are found to include the term 'social recruitment' in their textual records. The robustness of ASC is confirmed across multiple clustering algorithms, including k-means, k-medians, and k-medoids, with ΔIntra/Inter < 0.13 and ΔSilhouette Coefficient < 0.02. By bridging spectral clustering theory with heterogeneous data applications, ASC enables the identification of meaningful clusters, such as recruitment-focused SMEs exhibiting a 30% lower default risk, thereby supporting more targeted and effective credit interventions.
Reinforcement Learning of Dolly-In Filming Using a Ground-Based Robot
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2025
Year: 2025

Free-roaming dollies enhance filmmaking with dynamic movement, but challenges in automated camera control remain unresolved. Our study advances this field by applying Reinforcement Learning (RL) to automate dolly-in shots using free-roaming ground-based filming robots, overcoming traditional control hurdles. We demonstrate the effectiveness of combined control for precise film tasks by comparing it to independent control strategies. Our robust RL pipeline surpasses traditional Proportional-Derivative controller performance in simulation and proves its efficacy in real-world tests on a modified ROSBot 2.0 platform equipped with a camera turret. This validates our approach's practicality and sets the stage for further research in complex filming scenarios, contributing significantly to the fusion of technology with cinematic creativity. This work presents a leap forward in the field and opens new avenues for research and development, effectively bridging the gap between technological advancement and creative filmmaking.
Learning Dolly-In Filming From Demonstration Using a Ground-Based Robot
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2025
Year: 2025

Cinematic camera control demands a balance of precision and artistry - qualities that are difficult to encode through handcrafted reward functions. While reinforcement learning (RL) has been applied to robotic filmmaking, its reliance on bespoke rewards and extensive tuning limits creative usability. We propose a Learning from Demonstration (LfD) approach using Generative Adversarial Imitation Learning (GAIL) to automate dolly-in shots with a free-roaming, ground-based filming robot. Expert trajectories are collected via joystick teleoperation in simulation, capturing smooth, expressive motion without explicit objective design. Trained exclusively on these demonstrations, our GAIL policy outperforms a PPO baseline in simulation, achieving higher rewards, faster convergence, and lower variance. Crucially, it transfers directly to a real-world robot without fine-tuning, achieving more consistent framing and subject alignment than a prior TD3-based method. These results show that LfD offers a robust, reward-free alternative to RL in cinematic domains, enabling real-time deployment with minimal technical effort. Our pipeline brings intuitive, stylized camera control within reach of creative professionals, bridging the gap between artistic intent and robotic autonomy.
Supporting a Sustainable and Inclusive Urban Agriculture Federation using Dashboarding
Venue: arXiv cs.CY 2025
Year: 2025

Reliable access to food is a basic requirement in any sustainable society. However, achieving food security for all is still a challenge, especially for poor populations in urban environments. The project Feed4Food aims to use a federation of Living Labs of urban agriculture in different countries as a way to increase urban food security for vulnerable populations. Since different Living Labs have different characteristics and ways of working, the vision is that the knowledge obtained in individual Living Labs can be leveraged at the federation level through federated learning. With this specific goal in mind, a dashboarding tool is being established. In this work, we present a reusable process for establishing a dashboard that supports local awareness and decision making, as well as federated learning. The focus is on the first steps of this creation, i.e., defining what data to collect (through the creation of Key Performance Indicators) and how to visualize it. We exemplify the proposed process with the Feed4Food project and report on our insights so far.
COMET: A Framework for Modeling Compound Operation Dataflows with Explicit Collectives
Venue: arXiv cs.AR 2025
Year: 2025

Modern machine learning accelerators are designed to efficiently execute deep neural networks (DNNs) by optimizing data movement, memory hierarchy, and compute throughput. However, emerging DNN models such as large language models, state space models increasingly rely on compound operations-structured compositions of multiple basic operations-which introduce new challenges for dataflow optimization and minimizing off-chip memory traffic. Moreover, as model size continues to grow, deployment across spatially distributed compute clusters becomes essential, requiring frequent and complex collective communication. Existing dataflow optimization frameworks and performance models either focus on single operations or lack explicit modeling of collective communication cost, limiting their applicability to modern workloads. To address these limitations, we propose, a framework for modeling and optimizing dataflow for compound operations on machine learning accelerators. COMET introduces a novel representation that explicitly models collective communication across spatial clusters, along with latency and energy cost models that account for both GEMM and non-GEMM operation level dependencies within compound operations. We demonstrate COMET's capabilities to analyze and optimize dataflows for compound operations such as GEMM--Softmax, GEMM--LayerNorm, and self-attention, across both edge and cloud accelerator configurations. Our collective-aware modeling enables exploration of a broader mapping space, leading to improved performance and energy efficiency. Specifically, our optimized dataflows achieve up to 1.42$\times$ speedup for GEMM-Softmax, 3.46$\times$ for GEMM-LayerNorm and 1.82$\times$ for self-attention compared to unfused baselines.
TimeCopilot
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2025
Year: 2025

We introduce TimeCopilot, the first open-source agentic framework for forecasting that combines multiple Time Series Foundation Models (TSFMs) with Large Language Models (LLMs) through a single unified API. TimeCopilot automates the forecasting pipeline: feature analysis, model selection, cross-validation, and forecast generation, while providing natural language explanations and supporting direct queries about the future. The framework is LLM-agnostic, compatible with both commercial and open-source models, and supports ensembles across diverse forecasting families. Results on the large-scale GIFT-Eval benchmark show that TimeCopilot achieves state-of-the-art probabilistic forecasting performance at low cost. Our framework provides a practical foundation for reproducible, explainable, and accessible agentic forecasting systems.
Vehicle-in-Virtual-Environment (VVE) Method for Developing and Evaluating VRU Safety of Connected and Autonomous Driving with Focus on Bicyclist Safety
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2025
Year: 2025

Extensive research has already been conducted in the autonomous driving field to help vehicles navigate safely and efficiently. At the same time, plenty of current research on vulnerable road user (VRU) safety is performed which largely concentrates on perception, localization, or trajectory prediction of VRUs. However, existing research still exhibits several gaps, including the lack of a unified planning and collision avoidance system for autonomous vehicles, limited investigation into delay tolerant control strategies, and the absence of an efficient and standardized testing methodology. Ensuring VRU safety remains one of the most pressing challenges in autonomous driving, particularly in dynamic and unpredictable environments. In this two year project, we focused on applying the Vehicle in Virtual Environment (VVE) method to develop, evaluate, and demonstrate safety functions for Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) using automated steering and braking of ADS. In this current second year project report, our primary focus was on enhancing the previous year results while also considering bicyclist safety.
NetGent: Agent-Based Automation of Network Application Workflows
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2025
Year: 2025

We present NetGent, an AI-agent framework for automating complex application workflows to generate realistic network traffic datasets. Developing generalizable ML models for networking requires data collection from network environments with traffic that results from a diverse set of real-world web applications. However, using existing browser automation tools that are diverse, repeatable, realistic, and efficient remains fragile and costly. NetGent addresses this challenge by allowing users to specify workflows as natural-language rules that define state-dependent actions. These abstract specifications are compiled into nondeterministic finite automata (NFAs), which a state synthesis component translates into reusable, executable code. This design enables deterministic replay, reduces redundant LLM calls through state caching, and adapts quickly when application interfaces change. In experiments, NetGent automated more than 50+ workflows spanning video-on-demand streaming, live video streaming, video conferencing, social media, and web scraping, producing realistic traffic traces while remaining robust to UI variability. By combining the flexibility of language-based agents with the reliability of compiled execution, NetGent provides a scalable foundation for generating the diverse, repeatable datasets needed to advance ML in networking.
Towards Methane Detection Onboard Satellites
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2025
Year: 2025

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and a major driver of climate change, making its timely detection critical for effective mitigation. Machine learning (ML) deployed onboard satellites can enable rapid detection while reducing downlink costs, supporting faster response systems. Conventional methane detection methods often rely on image processing techniques, such as orthorectification to correct geometric distortions and matched filters to enhance plume signals. We introduce a novel approach that bypasses these preprocessing steps by using \textit{unorthorectified} data (UnorthoDOS). We find that ML models trained on this dataset achieve performance comparable to those trained on orthorectified data. Moreover, we also train models on an orthorectified dataset, showing that they can outperform the matched filter baseline (mag1c). We release model checkpoints and two ML-ready datasets comprising orthorectified and unorthorectified hyperspectral images from the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) sensor at https://huggingface.co/datasets/SpaceML/UnorthoDOS , along with code at https://github.com/spaceml-org/plume-hunter.
Context-Action Embedding Learning for Off-Policy Evaluation in Contextual Bandits
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2025
Year: 2025

We consider off-policy evaluation (OPE) in contextual bandits with finite action space. Inverse Propensity Score (IPS) weighting is a widely used method for OPE due to its unbiased, but it suffers from significant variance when the action space is large or when some parts of the context-action space are underexplored. Recently introduced Marginalized IPS (MIPS) estimators mitigate this issue by leveraging action embeddings. However, these embeddings do not minimize the mean squared error (MSE) of the estimators and do not consider context information. To address these limitations, we introduce Context-Action Embedding Learning for MIPS, or CAEL-MIPS, which learns context-action embeddings from offline data to minimize the MSE of the MIPS estimator. Building on the theoretical analysis of bias and variance of MIPS, we present an MSE-minimizing objective for CAEL-MIPS. In the empirical studies on a synthetic dataset and a real-world dataset, we demonstrate that our estimator outperforms baselines in terms of MSE.
Virtual Reality, Real Problems: A Longitudinal Security Analysis of VR Firmware
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2025
Year: 2025

Virtual Reality (VR) technology is rapidly growing in recent years. VR devices such as Meta Quest 3 utilize numerous sensors to collect users' data to provide an immersive experience. Due to the extensive data collection and the immersive nature, the security of VR devices is paramount. Leading VR devices often adopt and customize Android systems, which makes them susceptible to both Android-based vulnerabilities and new issues introduced by VR-specific customizations (e.g., system services to support continuous head and hand tracking). While prior work has extensively examined the security properties of the Android software stack, how these security properties hold for VR systems remains unexplored. In this paper, we present the first comprehensive security analysis of VR firmware. We collect over 300 versions of VR firmware from two major vendors, Quest and Pico, and perform a longitudinal analysis across the kernel layer, the system binary and library layer, and the application layer. We have identified several security issues in these VR firmware, including missing kernel-level security features, insufficient binary hardening, inconsistent permission enforcement, and inadequate SELinux policy enforcement. Based on our findings, we synthesize recommendations for VR vendors to improve security and trust for VR devices. This paper will act as an important security resource for VR developers, users, and vendors, and will also direct future advancements in secure VR ecosystem.
Unsupervised Dataset Cleaning Framework for Encrypted Traffic Classification
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2025
Year: 2025

Traffic classification, a technique for assigning network flows to predefined categories, has been widely deployed in enterprise and carrier networks. With the massive adoption of mobile devices, encryption is increasingly used in mobile applications to address privacy concerns. Consequently, traditional methods such as Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) fail to distinguish encrypted traffic. To tackle this challenge, Artificial Intelligence (AI), in particular Machine Learning (ML), has emerged as a promising solution for encrypted traffic classification. A crucial prerequisite for any ML-based approach is traffic data cleaning, which removes flows that are not useful for training (e.g., irrelevant protocols, background activity, control-plane messages, and long-lived sessions). Existing cleaning solutions depend on manual inspection of every captured packet, making the process both costly and time-consuming. In this poster, we present an unsupervised framework that automatically cleans encrypted mobile traffic. Evaluation on real-world datasets shows that our framework incurs only a 2%~2.5% reduction in classification accuracy compared with manual cleaning. These results demonstrate that our method offers an efficient and effective preprocessing step for ML-based encrypted traffic classification.
X-PRINT:Platform-Agnostic and Scalable Fine-Grained Encrypted Traffic Fingerprinting
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2025
Year: 2025

Although encryption protocols such as TLS are widely de-ployed,side-channel metadata in encrypted traffic still reveals patterns that allow application and behavior inference.How-ever,existing fine-grained fingerprinting approaches face two key limitations:(i)reliance on platform-dependent charac-teristics,which restricts generalization across heterogeneous platforms,and(ii)poor scalability for fine-grained behavior identification in open-world settings. In this paper,we present X-PRINT,the first server-centric,URI-based framework for cross-platform fine-grained encrypted-traffic fingerprinting.X-PRINT systematically demonstrates that backend URI invocation patterns can serve as platform-agnostic invariants and are effective for mod-eling fine-grained behaviors.To achieve robust identifica-tion,X-PRINT further leverages temporally structured URI maps for behavior inference and emphasizes the exclusion of platform-or application-specific private URIs to handle unseen cases,thereby improving reliability in open-world and cross-platform settings.Extensive experiments across diverse cross-platform and open-world settings show that X-PRINT achieves state-of-the-art accuracy in fine-grained fingerprint-ing and exhibits strong scalability and robustness.
LLM Encoder vs. Decoder: Robust Detection of Chinese AI-Generated Text with LoRA
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2025
Year: 2025

The rapid growth of large language models (LLMs) has heightened the demand for accurate detection of AI-generated text, particularly in languages like Chinese, where subtle linguistic nuances pose significant challenges to current methods. In this study, we conduct a systematic comparison of encoder-based Transformers (Chinese BERT-large and RoBERTa-wwm-ext-large), a decoder-only LLM (Alibaba's Qwen2.5-7B/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-7B fine-tuned via Low-Rank Adaptation, LoRA), and a FastText baseline using the publicly available dataset from the NLPCC 2025 Chinese AI-Generated Text Detection Task. Encoder models were fine-tuned using a novel prompt-based masked language modeling approach, while Qwen2.5-7B was adapted for classification with an instruction-format input and a lightweight classification head trained via LoRA. Experiments reveal that although encoder models nearly memorize training data, they suffer significant performance degradation under distribution shifts (RoBERTa: 76.3% test accuracy; BERT: 79.3%). FastText demonstrates surprising lexical robustness (83.5% accuracy) yet lacks deeper semantic understanding. In contrast, the LoRA-adapted Qwen2.5-7B achieves 95.94% test accuracy with balanced precision-recall metrics, indicating superior generalization and resilience to dataset-specific artifacts. These findings underscore the efficacy of decoder-based LLMs with parameter-efficient fine-tuning for robust Chinese AI-generated text detection. Future work will explore next-generation Qwen3 models, distilled variants, and ensemble strategies to enhance cross-domain robustness further.
Enhancing Fairness in Skin Lesion Classification for Medical Diagnosis Using Prune Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2025
Year: 2025

Recent advances in deep learning have significantly improved the accuracy of skin lesion classification models, supporting medical diagnoses and promoting equitable healthcare. However, concerns remain about potential biases related to skin color, which can impact diagnostic outcomes. Ensuring fairness is challenging due to difficulties in classifying skin tones, high computational demands, and the complexity of objectively verifying fairness. To address these challenges, we propose a fairness algorithm for skin lesion classification that overcomes the challenges associated with achieving diagnostic fairness across varying skin tones. By calculating the skewness of the feature map in the convolution layer of the VGG (Visual Geometry Group) network and the patches and the heads of the Vision Transformer, our method reduces unnecessary channels related to skin tone, focusing instead on the lesion area. This approach lowers computational costs and mitigates bias without relying on conventional statistical methods. It potentially reduces model size while maintaining fairness, making it more practical for real-world applications.