pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Safe Reinforcement Learning for Real-World Engine Control
Authors: Julian Bedei, Lucas Koch, Kevin Badalian, Alexander Winkler, Patrick Schaber, Jakob Andert
Date: 2025-01-28 00:00:00
Tasks: reinforcement-learning, Reinforcement Learning, Reinforcement Learning (RL), Safe Reinforcement Learning

This work introduces a toolchain for applying Reinforcement Learning (RL), specifically the Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DDPG) algorithm, in safety-critical real-world environments. As an exemplary application, transient load control is demonstrated on a single-cylinder internal combustion engine testbench in Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) mode, that offers high thermal efficiency and low emissions. However, HCCI poses challenges for traditional control methods due to its nonlinear, autoregressive, and stochastic nature. RL provides a viable solution, however, safety concerns, such as excessive pressure rise rates, must be addressed when applying to HCCI. A single unsuitable control input can severely damage the engine or cause misfiring and shut down. Additionally, operating limits are not known a priori and must be determined experimentally. To mitigate these risks, real-time safety monitoring based on the k-nearest neighbor algorithm is implemented, enabling safe interaction with the testbench. The feasibility of this approach is demonstrated as the RL agent learns a control policy through interaction with the testbench. A root mean square error of 0.1374 bar is achieved for the indicated mean effective pressure, comparable to neural network-based controllers from the literature. The toolchain's flexibility is further demonstrated by adapting the agent's policy to increase ethanol energy shares, promoting renewable fuel use while maintaining safety. This RL approach addresses the longstanding challenge of applying RL to safety-critical real-world environments. The developed toolchain, with its adaptability and safety mechanisms, paves the way for future applicability of RL in engine testbenches and other safety-critical settings.
CowPilot: A Framework for Autonomous and Human-Agent Collaborative Web Navigation
Authors: Faria Huq, Zora Zhiruo Wang, Frank F. Xu, Tianyue Ou, Shuyan Zhou, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Graham Neubig
Date: 2025-01-28 00:00:00

While much work on web agents emphasizes the promise of autonomously performing tasks on behalf of users, in reality, agents often fall short on complex tasks in real-world contexts and modeling user preference. This presents an opportunity for humans to collaborate with the agent and leverage the agent's capabilities effectively. We propose CowPilot, a framework supporting autonomous as well as human-agent collaborative web navigation, and evaluation across task success and task efficiency. CowPilot reduces the number of steps humans need to perform by allowing agents to propose next steps, while users are able to pause, reject, or take alternative actions. During execution, users can interleave their actions with the agent by overriding suggestions or resuming agent control when needed. We conducted case studies on five common websites and found that the human-agent collaborative mode achieves the highest success rate of 95% while requiring humans to perform only 15.2% of the total steps. Even with human interventions during task execution, the agent successfully drives up to half of task success on its own. CowPilot can serve as a useful tool for data collection and agent evaluation across websites, which we believe will enable research in how users and agents can work together. Video demonstrations are available at https://oaishi.github.io/cowpilot.html
MCTS-SQL: An Effective Framework for Text-to-SQL with Monte Carlo Tree Search
Authors: Shuozhi Yuan, Liming Chen, Miaomiao Yuan, Jin Zhao, Haoran Peng, Wenming Guo
Date: 2025-01-28 00:00:00
Tasks: Natural Language Queries, Text to SQL, Text-To-SQL

Text-to-SQL is a fundamental and longstanding problem in the NLP area, aiming at converting natural language queries into SQL, enabling non-expert users to operate databases. Recent advances in LLM have greatly improved text-to-SQL performance. However, challenges persist, especially when dealing with complex user queries. Current approaches (e.g., COT prompting and multi-agent frameworks) rely on the ability of models to plan and generate SQL autonomously, but controlling performance remains difficult. In addition, LLMs are still prone to hallucinations. To alleviate these challenges, we designed a novel MCTS-SQL to guide SQL generation iteratively. The approach generates SQL queries through Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) and a heuristic self-refinement mechanism are used to enhance accuracy and reliability. Key components include a schema selector for extracting relevant information and an MCTS-based generator for iterative query refinement. Experimental results from the SPIDER and BIRD benchmarks show that MCTS-SQL achieves state-of-the-art performance. Specifically, on the BIRD development dataset, MCTS-SQL achieves an Execution (EX) accuracy of 69.40% using GPT-4o as the base model and a significant improvement when dealing with challenging tasks, with an EX of 51.48%, which is 3.41% higher than the existing method.
Can We Govern the Agent-to-Agent Economy?
Authors: Tomer Jordi Chaffer
Date: 2025-01-28 00:00:00

Current approaches to AI governance often fall short in anticipating a future where AI agents manage critical tasks, such as financial operations, administrative functions, and beyond. While cryptocurrencies could serve as the foundation for monetizing value exchange in a collaboration and delegation dynamic among AI agents, a critical question remains: how can humans ensure meaningful oversight and control as a future economy of AI agents scales and evolves? In this philosophical exploration, we highlight emerging concepts in the industry to inform research and development efforts in anticipation of a future decentralized agentic economy.
Impact and influence of modern AI in metadata management
Authors: Wenli Yang, Rui Fu, Muhammad Bilal Amin, Byeong Kang
Date: 2025-01-28 00:00:00
Tasks: Decision Making, Management

Metadata management plays a critical role in data governance, resource discovery, and decision-making in the data-driven era. While traditional metadata approaches have primarily focused on organization, classification, and resource reuse, the integration of modern artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has significantly transformed these processes. This paper investigates both traditional and AI-driven metadata approaches by examining open-source solutions, commercial tools, and research initiatives. A comparative analysis of traditional and AI-driven metadata management methods is provided, highlighting existing challenges and their impact on next-generation datasets. The paper also presents an innovative AI-assisted metadata management framework designed to address these challenges. This framework leverages more advanced modern AI technologies to automate metadata generation, enhance governance, and improve the accessibility and usability of modern datasets. Finally, the paper outlines future directions for research and development, proposing opportunities to further advance metadata management in the context of AI-driven innovation and complex datasets.
Applying Ensemble Models based on Graph Neural Network and Reinforcement Learning for Wind Power Forecasting
Authors: Hongjin Song, Qianrun Chen, Tianqi Jiang, Yongfeng Li, Xusheng Li, Wenjun Xi, Songtao Huang
Date: 2025-01-28 00:00:00
Tasks: Graph Neural Network, reinforcement-learning, Reinforcement Learning

Accurately predicting the wind power output of a wind farm across various time scales utilizing Wind Power Forecasting (WPF) is a critical issue in wind power trading and utilization. The WPF problem remains unresolved due to numerous influencing variables, such as wind speed, temperature, latitude, and longitude. Furthermore, achieving high prediction accuracy is crucial for maintaining electric grid stability and ensuring supply security. In this paper, we model all wind turbines within a wind farm as graph nodes in a graph built by their geographical locations. Accordingly, we propose an ensemble model based on graph neural networks and reinforcement learning (EMGRL) for WPF. Our approach includes: (1) applying graph neural networks to capture the time-series data from neighboring wind farms relevant to the target wind farm; (2) establishing a general state embedding that integrates the target wind farm's data with the historical performance of base models on the target wind farm; (3) ensembling and leveraging the advantages of all base models through an actor-critic reinforcement learning framework for WPF.
Generative AI Uses and Risks for Knowledge Workers in a Science Organization
Authors: Kelly B. Wagman, Matthew T. Dearing, Marshini Chetty
Date: 2025-01-27 00:00:00
Tasks: scientific discovery

Generative AI could enhance scientific discovery by supporting knowledge workers in science organizations. However, the real-world applications and perceived concerns of generative AI use in these organizations are uncertain. In this paper, we report on a collaborative study with a US national laboratory with employees spanning Science and Operations about their use of generative AI tools. We surveyed 66 employees, interviewed a subset (N=22), and measured early adoption of an internal generative AI interface called Argo lab-wide. We have four findings: (1) Argo usage data shows small but increasing use by Science and Operations employees; Common current and envisioned use cases for generative AI in this context conceptually fall into either a (2) copilot or (3) workflow agent modality; and (4) Concerns include sensitive data security, academic publishing, and job impacts. Based on our findings, we make recommendations for generative AI use in science and other organizations.
Efficient Object Detection of Marine Debris using Pruned YOLO Model
Authors: Abi Aryaza, Novanto Yudistira, Tibyani
Date: 2025-01-27 00:00:00
Tasks: object-detection, Object Detection

Marine debris poses significant harm to marine life due to substances like microplastics, polychlorinated biphenyls, and pesticides, which damage habitats and poison organisms. Human-based solutions, such as diving, are increasingly ineffective in addressing this issue. Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are being developed for efficient sea garbage collection, with the choice of object detection architecture being critical. This research employs the YOLOv4 model for real-time detection of marine debris using the Trash-ICRA 19 dataset, consisting of 7683 images at 480x320 pixels. Various modifications-pretrained models, training from scratch, mosaic augmentation, layer freezing, YOLOv4-tiny, and channel pruning-are compared to enhance architecture efficiency. Channel pruning significantly improves detection speed, increasing the base YOLOv4 frame rate from 15.19 FPS to 19.4 FPS, with only a 1.2% drop in mean Average Precision, from 97.6% to 96.4%.
PackDiT: Joint Human Motion and Text Generation via Mutual Prompting
Authors: Zhongyu Jiang, Wenhao Chai, Zhuoran Zhou, Cheng-Yen Yang, Hsiang-Wei Huang, Jenq-Neng Hwang
Date: 2025-01-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Motion Generation, motion prediction, Text Generation

Human motion generation has advanced markedly with the advent of diffusion models. Most recent studies have concentrated on generating motion sequences based on text prompts, commonly referred to as text-to-motion generation. However, the bidirectional generation of motion and text, enabling tasks such as motion-to-text alongside text-to-motion, has been largely unexplored. This capability is essential for aligning diverse modalities and supports unconditional generation. In this paper, we introduce PackDiT, the first diffusion-based generative model capable of performing various tasks simultaneously, including motion generation, motion prediction, text generation, text-to-motion, motion-to-text, and joint motion-text generation. Our core innovation leverages mutual blocks to integrate multiple diffusion transformers (DiTs) across different modalities seamlessly. We train PackDiT on the HumanML3D dataset, achieving state-of-the-art text-to-motion performance with an FID score of 0.106, along with superior results in motion prediction and in-between tasks. Our experiments further demonstrate that diffusion models are effective for motion-to-text generation, achieving performance comparable to that of autoregressive models.
Sample-Efficient Behavior Cloning Using General Domain Knowledge
Authors: Feiyu Zhu, Jean Oh, Reid Simmons
Date: 2025-01-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Car Racing, Feature Engineering, General Knowledge, Sequential Decision Making

Behavior cloning has shown success in many sequential decision-making tasks by learning from expert demonstrations, yet they can be very sample inefficient and fail to generalize to unseen scenarios. One approach to these problems is to introduce general domain knowledge, such that the policy can focus on the essential features and may generalize to unseen states by applying that knowledge. Although this knowledge is easy to acquire from the experts, it is hard to be combined with learning from individual examples due to the lack of semantic structure in neural networks and the time-consuming nature of feature engineering. To enable learning from both general knowledge and specific demonstration trajectories, we use a large language model's coding capability to instantiate a policy structure based on expert domain knowledge expressed in natural language and tune the parameters in the policy with demonstrations. We name this approach the Knowledge Informed Model (KIM) as the structure reflects the semantics of expert knowledge. In our experiments with lunar lander and car racing tasks, our approach learns to solve the tasks with as few as 5 demonstrations and is robust to action noise, outperforming the baseline model without domain knowledge. This indicates that with the help of large language models, we can incorporate domain knowledge into the structure of the policy, increasing sample efficiency for behavior cloning.
Generalized Mission Planning for Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Teams via LLM-constructed Hierarchical Trees
Authors: Piyush Gupta, David Isele, Enna Sachdeva, Pin-Hao Huang, Behzad Dariush, Kwonjoon Lee, Sangjae Bae
Date: 2025-01-27 00:00:00

We present a novel mission-planning strategy for heterogeneous multi-robot teams, taking into account the specific constraints and capabilities of each robot. Our approach employs hierarchical trees to systematically break down complex missions into manageable sub-tasks. We develop specialized APIs and tools, which are utilized by Large Language Models (LLMs) to efficiently construct these hierarchical trees. Once the hierarchical tree is generated, it is further decomposed to create optimized schedules for each robot, ensuring adherence to their individual constraints and capabilities. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework through detailed examples covering a wide range of missions, showcasing its flexibility and scalability.
Targeting Alignment: Extracting Safety Classifiers of Aligned LLMs
Authors: Jean-Charles Noirot Ferrand, Yohan Beugin, Eric Pauley, Ryan Sheatsley, Patrick McDaniel
Date: 2025-01-27 00:00:00

Alignment in large language models (LLMs) is used to enforce guidelines such as safety. Yet, alignment fails in the face of jailbreak attacks that modify inputs to induce unsafe outputs. In this paper, we present and evaluate a method to assess the robustness of LLM alignment. We observe that alignment embeds a safety classifier in the target model that is responsible for deciding between refusal and compliance. We seek to extract an approximation of this classifier, called a surrogate classifier, from the LLM. We develop an algorithm for identifying candidate classifiers from subsets of the LLM model. We evaluate the degree to which the candidate classifiers approximate the model's embedded classifier in benign (F1 score) and adversarial (using surrogates in a white-box attack) settings. Our evaluation shows that the best candidates achieve accurate agreement (an F1 score above 80%) using as little as 20% of the model architecture. Further, we find attacks mounted on the surrogate models can be transferred with high accuracy. For example, a surrogate using only 50% of the Llama 2 model achieved an attack success rate (ASR) of 70%, a substantial improvement over attacking the LLM directly, where we only observed a 22% ASR. These results show that extracting surrogate classifiers is a viable (and highly effective) means for modeling (and therein addressing) the vulnerability of aligned models to jailbreaking attacks.
Multi-Objective Deep-Learning-based Biomechanical Deformable Image Registration with MOREA
Authors: Georgios Andreadis, Eduard Ruiz Munné, Thomas H. W. Bäck, Peter A. N. Bosman, Tanja Alderliesten
Date: 2025-01-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Image Registration

When choosing a deformable image registration (DIR) approach for images with large deformations and content mismatch, the realism of found transformations often needs to be traded off against the required runtime. DIR approaches using deep learning (DL) techniques have shown remarkable promise in instantly predicting a transformation. However, on difficult registration problems, the realism of these transformations can fall short. DIR approaches using biomechanical, finite element modeling (FEM) techniques can find more realistic transformations, but tend to require much longer runtimes. This work proposes the first hybrid approach to combine them, with the aim of getting the best of both worlds. This hybrid approach, called DL-MOREA, combines a recently introduced multi-objective DL-based DIR approach which leverages the VoxelMorph framework, called DL-MODIR, with MOREA, an evolutionary algorithm-based, multi-objective DIR approach in which a FEM-like biomechanical mesh transformation model is used. In our proposed hybrid approach, the DL results are used to smartly initialize MOREA, with the aim of more efficiently optimizing its mesh transformation model. We empirically compare DL-MOREA against its components, DL-MODIR and MOREA, on CT scan pairs capturing large bladder filling differences of 15 cervical cancer patients. While MOREA requires a median runtime of 45 minutes, DL-MOREA can already find high-quality transformations after 5 minutes. Compared to the DL-MODIR transformations, the transformations found by DL-MOREA exhibit far less folding and improve or preserve the bladder contour distance error.
How well can LLMs Grade Essays in Arabic?
Authors: Rayed Ghazawi, Edwin Simpson
Date: 2025-01-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Automated Essay Scoring, In-Context Learning, Instruction Following, Prompt Engineering

This research assesses the effectiveness of state-of-the-art large language models (LLMs), including ChatGPT, Llama, Aya, Jais, and ACEGPT, in the task of Arabic automated essay scoring (AES) using the AR-AES dataset. It explores various evaluation methodologies, including zero-shot, few-shot in-context learning, and fine-tuning, and examines the influence of instruction-following capabilities through the inclusion of marking guidelines within the prompts. A mixed-language prompting strategy, integrating English prompts with Arabic content, was implemented to improve model comprehension and performance. Among the models tested, ACEGPT demonstrated the strongest performance across the dataset, achieving a Quadratic Weighted Kappa (QWK) of 0.67, but was outperformed by a smaller BERT-based model with a QWK of 0.88. The study identifies challenges faced by LLMs in processing Arabic, including tokenization complexities and higher computational demands. Performance variation across different courses underscores the need for adaptive models capable of handling diverse assessment formats and highlights the positive impact of effective prompt engineering on improving LLM outputs. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to empirically evaluate the performance of multiple generative Large Language Models (LLMs) on Arabic essays using authentic student data.
Decrypting the temperature field in flow boiling with latent diffusion models
Authors: UngJin Na, Junyoung Seo, Taeil Kim, ByongGuk Jeon, HangJin Jo
Date: 2025-01-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Denoising

This paper presents an innovative method using Latent Diffusion Models (LDMs) to generate temperature fields from phase indicator maps. By leveraging the BubbleML dataset from numerical simulations, the LDM translates phase field data into corresponding temperature distributions through a two-stage training process involving a vector-quantized variational autoencoder (VQVAE) and a denoising autoencoder. The resulting model effectively reconstructs complex temperature fields at interfaces. Spectral analysis indicates a high degree of agreement with ground truth data in the low to mid wavenumber ranges, even though some inconsistencies are observed at higher wavenumbers, suggesting areas for further enhancement. This machine learning approach significantly reduces the computational burden of traditional simulations and improves the precision of experimental calibration methods. Future work will focus on refining the model's ability to represent small-scale turbulence and expanding its applicability to a broader range of boiling conditions.
Reinforcement Learning for Quantum Circuit Design: Using Matrix Representations
Authors: Zhiyuan Wang, Chunlin Feng, Christopher Poon, Lijian Huang, Xingjian Zhao, Yao Ma, Tianfan Fu, Xiao-Yang Liu
Date: 2025-01-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Deep Reinforcement Learning, Q-Learning, reinforcement-learning, Reinforcement Learning

Quantum computing promises advantages over classical computing. The manufacturing of quantum hardware is in the infancy stage, called the Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) era. A major challenge is automated quantum circuit design that map a quantum circuit to gates in a universal gate set. In this paper, we present a generic MDP modeling and employ Q-learning and DQN algorithms for quantum circuit design. By leveraging the power of deep reinforcement learning, we aim to provide an automatic and scalable approach over traditional hand-crafted heuristic methods.
Characterizing Network Structure of Anti-Trans Actors on TikTok
Authors: Maxyn Leitner, Rebecca Dorn, Fred Morstatter, Kristina Lerman
Date: 2025-01-27 00:00:00
Tasks: RAG, Retrieval-augmented Generation

The recent proliferation of short form video social media sites such as TikTok has been effectively utilized for increased visibility, communication, and community connection amongst trans/nonbinary creators online. However, these same platforms have also been exploited by right-wing actors targeting trans/nonbinary people, enabling such anti-trans actors to efficiently spread hate speech and propaganda. Given these divergent groups, what are the differences in network structure between anti-trans and pro-trans communities on TikTok, and to what extent do they amplify the effects of anti-trans content? In this paper, we collect a sample of TikTok videos containing pro and anti-trans content, and develop a taxonomy of trans related sentiment to enable the classification of content on TikTok, and ultimately analyze the reply network structures of pro-trans and anti-trans communities. In order to accomplish this, we worked with hired expert data annotators from the trans/nonbinary community in order to generate a sample of highly accurately labeled data. From this subset, we utilized a novel classification pipeline leveraging Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) with annotated examples and taxonomy definitions to classify content into pro-trans, anti-trans, or neutral categories. We find that incorporating our taxonomy and its logics into our classification engine results in improved ability to differentiate trans related content, and that Results from network analysis indicate many interactions between posters of pro-trans and anti-trans content exist, further demonstrating targeting of trans individuals, and demonstrating the need for better content moderation tools