pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
ALINE: Joint Amortization for Bayesian Inference and Active Data Acquisition
Authors: Daolang Huang, Xinyi Wen, Ayush Bharti, Samuel Kaski, Luigi Acerbi
Date: 2025-06-08 00:00:00
Tasks: Active Learning, Bayesian Inference, Experimental Design, scientific discovery

Many critical applications, from autonomous scientific discovery to personalized medicine, demand systems that can both strategically acquire the most informative data and instantaneously perform inference based upon it. While amortized methods for Bayesian inference and experimental design offer part of the solution, neither approach is optimal in the most general and challenging task, where new data needs to be collected for instant inference. To tackle this issue, we introduce the Amortized Active Learning and Inference Engine (ALINE), a unified framework for amortized Bayesian inference and active data acquisition. ALINE leverages a transformer architecture trained via reinforcement learning with a reward based on self-estimated information gain provided by its own integrated inference component. This allows it to strategically query informative data points while simultaneously refining its predictions. Moreover, ALINE can selectively direct its querying strategy towards specific subsets of model parameters or designated predictive tasks, optimizing for posterior estimation, data prediction, or a mixture thereof. Empirical results on regression-based active learning, classical Bayesian experimental design benchmarks, and a psychometric model with selectively targeted parameters demonstrate that ALINE delivers both instant and accurate inference along with efficient selection of informative points.
A Narrative Review on Large AI Models in Lung Cancer Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment Planning
Authors: Jiachen Zhong, Yiting Wang, Di Zhu, Ziwei Wang
Date: 2025-06-08 00:00:00
Tasks: Decision Making, Decoder, Prognosis

Lung cancer remains one of the most prevalent and fatal diseases worldwide, demanding accurate and timely diagnosis and treatment. Recent advancements in large AI models have significantly enhanced medical image understanding and clinical decision-making. This review systematically surveys the state-of-the-art in applying large AI models to lung cancer screening, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. We categorize existing models into modality-specific encoders, encoder-decoder frameworks, and joint encoder architectures, highlighting key examples such as CLIP, BLIP, Flamingo, BioViL-T, and GLoRIA. We further examine their performance in multimodal learning tasks using benchmark datasets like LIDC-IDRI, NLST, and MIMIC-CXR. Applications span pulmonary nodule detection, gene mutation prediction, multi-omics integration, and personalized treatment planning, with emerging evidence of clinical deployment and validation. Finally, we discuss current limitations in generalizability, interpretability, and regulatory compliance, proposing future directions for building scalable, explainable, and clinically integrated AI systems. Our review underscores the transformative potential of large AI models to personalize and optimize lung cancer care.
HOI-PAGE: Zero-Shot Human-Object Interaction Generation with Part Affordance Guidance
Authors: Lei LI, Angela Dai
Date: 2025-06-08 00:00:00
Tasks: Human-Object Interaction Detection, Human-Object Interaction Generation, Object

We present HOI-PAGE, a new approach to synthesizing 4D human-object interactions (HOIs) from text prompts in a zero-shot fashion, driven by part-level affordance reasoning. In contrast to prior works that focus on global, whole body-object motion for 4D HOI synthesis, we observe that generating realistic and diverse HOIs requires a finer-grained understanding -- at the level of how human body parts engage with object parts. We thus introduce Part Affordance Graphs (PAGs), a structured HOI representation distilled from large language models (LLMs) that encodes fine-grained part information along with contact relations. We then use these PAGs to guide a three-stage synthesis: first, decomposing input 3D objects into geometric parts; then, generating reference HOI videos from text prompts, from which we extract part-based motion constraints; finally, optimizing for 4D HOI motion sequences that not only mimic the reference dynamics but also satisfy part-level contact constraints. Extensive experiments show that our approach is flexible and capable of generating complex multi-object or multi-person interaction sequences, with significantly improved realism and text alignment for zero-shot 4D HOI generation.
Translating Federated Learning Algorithms in Python into CSP Processes Using ChatGPT
Authors: Miroslav Popovic, Marko Popovic, Miodrag Djukic, Ilija Basicevic
Date: 2025-06-08 00:00:00
Tasks: Federated Learning, Translation

The Python Testbed for Federated Learning Algorithms is a simple Python FL framework that is easy to use by ML&AI developers who do not need to be professional programmers and is also amenable to LLMs. In the previous research, generic federated learning algorithms provided by this framework were manually translated into the CSP processes and algorithms' safety and liveness properties were automatically verified by the model checker PAT. In this paper, a simple translation process is introduced wherein the ChatGPT is used to automate the translation of the mentioned federated learning algorithms in Python into the corresponding CSP processes. Within the process, the minimality of the used context is estimated based on the feedback from ChatGPT. The proposed translation process was experimentally validated by successful translation (verified by the model checker PAT) of both generic centralized and decentralized federated learning algorithms.
pFedSOP : Accelerating Training Of Personalized Federated Learning Using Second-Order Optimization
Authors: Mrinmay Sen, Chalavadi Krishna Mohan
Date: 2025-06-08 00:00:00
Tasks: Federated Learning, image-classification, Image Classification, Personalized Federated Learning

Personalized Federated Learning (PFL) enables clients to collaboratively train personalized models tailored to their individual objectives, addressing the challenge of model generalization in traditional Federated Learning (FL) due to high data heterogeneity. However, existing PFL methods often require increased communication rounds to achieve the desired performance, primarily due to slow training caused by the use of first-order optimization, which has linear convergence. Additionally, many of these methods increase local computation because of the additional data fed into the model during the search for personalized local models. One promising solution to this slow training is second-order optimization, known for its quadratic convergence. However, employing it in PFL is challenging due to the Hessian matrix and its inverse. In this paper, we propose pFedSOP, which efficiently utilizes second-order optimization in PFL to accelerate the training of personalized models and enhance performance with fewer communication rounds. Our approach first computes a personalized local gradient update using the Gompertz function-based normalized angle between local and global gradient updates, incorporating client-specific global information. We then use a regularized Fisher Information Matrix (FIM), computed from this personalized gradient update, as an approximation of the Hessian to update the personalized models. This FIM-based second-order optimization speeds up training with fewer communication rounds by tackling the challenges with exact Hessian and avoids additional data being fed into the model during the search for personalized local models. Extensive experiments on heterogeneously partitioned image classification datasets with partial client participation demonstrate that pFedSOP outperforms state-of-the-art FL and PFL algorithms.
Near-Field Integrated Sensing and Communication for Multi-Target Indication
Authors: Hang Ruan, Homa Nikbakht, Ruizhi Zhang, Honglei Chen, Yonina C. Eldar
Date: 2025-06-08 00:00:00
Tasks: Integrated sensing and communication, ISAC

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) in the near-field regime offers the potential to jointly support high-rate downlink transmission and high-resolution multi-target detection by exploiting the spherical-wave nature of electromagnetic propagation. In this paper, we propose a unified beamforming framework for a multi-user multi-target near-field ISAC system. In this system, a multi-antenna base station simultaneously serves multiple single-antenna users and senses multiple point-targets without prior knowledge of their radar cross sections. By optimizing the transmit covariance matrix, our design maximizes the minimum weighted transmit beampattern gain across all targets to ensure accurate sensing while strictly limiting inter-target cross-correlations and guaranteeing per-user communication rate and total power constraints. We extend classical far-field beampattern and cross-correlation measures to the near-field by incorporating both angle and range dependencies, enabling discrimination of targets along the same direction but at different distances. The resulting non-convex program is efficiently relaxed to a semidefinite program via rank-one lifting. We then develop a closed-form reconstruction to recover optimal rank-one beamformers. Numerical simulations demonstrate that our near-field ISAC design can simultaneously resolve and serve users/targets along the same direction but at different distances, achieving significant gains over far-field and single-target benchmarks.
Fuse and Federate: Enhancing EV Charging Station Security with Multimodal Fusion and Federated Learning
Authors: Rabah Rahal, Abdelaziz Amara korba, Yacine Ghamri-Doudane
Date: 2025-06-07 00:00:00
Tasks: Federated Learning, Intrusion Detection

The rapid global adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) has established electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) as a critical component of smart grid infrastructure. While essential for ensuring reliable energy delivery and accessibility, EVSE systems face significant cybersecurity challenges, including network reconnaissance, backdoor intrusions, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. These emerging threats, driven by the interconnected and autonomous nature of EVSE, require innovative and adaptive security mechanisms that go beyond traditional intrusion detection systems (IDS). Existing approaches, whether network-based or host-based, often fail to detect sophisticated and targeted attacks specifically crafted to exploit new vulnerabilities in EVSE infrastructure. This paper proposes a novel intrusion detection framework that leverages multimodal data sources, including network traffic and kernel events, to identify complex attack patterns. The framework employs a distributed learning approach, enabling collaborative intelligence across EVSE stations while preserving data privacy through federated learning. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed framework outperforms existing solutions, achieving a detection rate above 98% and a precision rate exceeding 97% in decentralized environments. This solution addresses the evolving challenges of EVSE security, offering a scalable and privacypreserving response to advanced cyber threats
Breaking Data Silos: Towards Open and Scalable Mobility Foundation Models via Generative Continual Learning
Authors: Yuan Yuan, Yukun Liu, Chonghua Han, Jie Feng, Yong Li
Date: 2025-06-07 00:00:00
Tasks: Continual Learning, Federated Learning, Mixture-of-Experts, Privacy Preserving

Foundation models have revolutionized fields such as natural language processing and computer vision by enabling general-purpose learning across diverse tasks and datasets. However, building analogous models for human mobility remains challenging due to the privacy-sensitive nature of mobility data and the resulting data silos across institutions. To bridge this gap, we propose MoveGCL, a scalable and privacy-preserving framework for training mobility foundation models via generative continual learning. Without sharing raw data, MoveGCL enables decentralized and progressive model evolution by replaying synthetic trajectories generated from a frozen teacher model, and reinforces knowledge retention through a tailored distillation strategy that mitigates catastrophic forgetting. To address the heterogeneity of mobility patterns, MoveGCL incorporates a Mixture-of-Experts Transformer with a mobility-aware expert routing mechanism, and employs a layer-wise progressive adaptation strategy to stabilize continual updates. Experiments on six real-world urban datasets demonstrate that MoveGCL achieves performance comparable to joint training and significantly outperforms federated learning baselines, while offering strong privacy protection. MoveGCL marks a crucial step toward unlocking foundation models for mobility, offering a practical blueprint for open, scalable, and privacy-preserving model development in the era of foundation models.
Large Language Models Can Be a Viable Substitute for Expert Political Surveys When a Shock Disrupts Traditional Measurement Approaches
Authors: Patrick Y. Wu
Date: 2025-06-06 00:00:00
Tasks: Position

After a disruptive event or shock, such as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) federal layoffs of 2025, expert judgments are colored by knowledge of the outcome. This can make it difficult or impossible to reconstruct the pre-event perceptions needed to study the factors associated with the event. This position paper argues that large language models (LLMs), trained on vast amounts of digital media data, can be a viable substitute for expert political surveys when a shock disrupts traditional measurement. We analyze the DOGE layoffs as a specific case study for this position. We use pairwise comparison prompts with LLMs and derive ideology scores for federal executive agencies. These scores replicate pre-layoff expert measures and predict which agencies were targeted by DOGE. We also use this same approach and find that the perceptions of certain federal agencies as knowledge institutions predict which agencies were targeted by DOGE, even when controlling for ideology. This case study demonstrates that using LLMs allows us to rapidly and easily test the associated factors hypothesized behind the shock. More broadly, our case study of this recent event exemplifies how LLMs offer insights into the correlational factors of the shock when traditional measurement techniques fail. We conclude by proposing a two-part criterion for when researchers can turn to LLMs as a substitute for expert political surveys.
Distribution-Level AirComp for Wireless Federated Learning under Data Scarcity and Heterogeneity
Authors: Jun-Pyo Hong, Hyowoon Seo, Kisong Lee
Date: 2025-06-06 00:00:00
Tasks: Bayesian Inference, Federated Learning

The conventional FL methods face critical challenges in realistic wireless edge networks, where training data is both limited and heterogeneous, often leading to unstable training and poor generalization. To address these challenges in a principled manner, we propose a novel wireless FL framework grounded in Bayesian inference. By virtue of the Bayesian approach, our framework captures model uncertainty by maintaining distributions over local weights and performs distribution-level aggregation of local distributions into a global distribution. This mitigates local overfitting and client drift, thereby enabling more reliable inference. Nevertheless, adopting Bayesian FL increases communication overhead due to the need to transmit richer model information and fundamentally alters the aggregation process beyond simple averaging. As a result, conventional Over-the-Air Computation (AirComp), widely used to improve communication efficiency in standard FL, is no longer directly applicable. To overcome this limitation, we design a dedicated AirComp scheme tailored to Bayesian FL, which efficiently aggregates local posterior distributions at the distribution level by exploiting the superposition property of wireless channels. In addition, we derive an optimal transmit power control strategy, grounded in rigorous convergence analysis, to accelerate training under power constraints. Our analysis explicitly accounts for practical wireless impairments such as fading and noise, and provides theoretical guarantees for convergence. Extensive simulations validate the proposed framework, demonstrating significant improvements in test accuracy and calibration performance over conventional FL methods, particularly in data-scarce and heterogeneous environments.
Mitigating Catastrophic Forgetting with Adaptive Transformer Block Expansion in Federated Fine-Tuning
Authors: Yujia Huo, Jianchun Liu, Hongli Xu, Zhenguo Ma, Shilong Wang, Liusheng Huang
Date: 2025-06-06 00:00:00
Tasks: parameter-efficient fine-tuning

Federated fine-tuning (FedFT) of large language models (LLMs) has emerged as a promising solution for adapting models to distributed data environments while ensuring data privacy. Existing FedFT methods predominantly utilize parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT) techniques to reduce communication and computation overhead. However, they often fail to adequately address the catastrophic forgetting, a critical challenge arising from continual adaptation in distributed environments. The traditional centralized fine-tuning methods, which are not designed for the heterogeneous and privacy-constrained nature of federated environments, struggle to mitigate this issue effectively. Moreover, the challenge is further exacerbated by significant variation in data distributions and device capabilities across clients, which leads to intensified forgetting and degraded model generalization. To tackle these issues, we propose FedBE, a novel FedFT framework that integrates an adaptive transformer block expansion mechanism with a dynamic trainable-block allocation strategy. Specifically, FedBE expands trainable blocks within the model architecture, structurally separating newly learned task-specific knowledge from the original pre-trained representations. Additionally, FedBE dynamically assigns these trainable blocks to clients based on their data distributions and computational capabilities. This enables the framework to better accommodate heterogeneous federated environments and enhances the generalization ability of the model.Extensive experiments show that compared with existing federated fine-tuning methods, FedBE achieves 12-74% higher accuracy retention on general tasks after fine-tuning and a model convergence acceleration ratio of 1.9-3.1x without degrading the accuracy of downstream tasks.
Regional, Lattice and Logical Representations of Neural Networks
Authors: Sandro Preto, Marcelo Finger
Date: 2025-06-06 00:00:00

A possible path to the interpretability of neural networks is to (approximately) represent them in the regional format of piecewise linear functions, where regions of inputs are associated to linear functions computing the network outputs. We present an algorithm for the translation of feedforward neural networks with ReLU activation functions in hidden layers and truncated identity activation functions in the output layer. We also empirically investigate the complexity of regional representations outputted by our method for neural networks with varying sizes. Lattice and logical representations of neural networks are straightforward from regional representations as long as they satisfy a specific property. So we empirically investigate to what extent the translations by our algorithm satisfy such property.
Multi-Modal Multi-Task Federated Foundation Models for Next-Generation Extended Reality Systems: Towards Privacy-Preserving Distributed Intelligence in AR/VR/MR
Authors: Fardis Nadimi, Payam Abdisarabshali, Kasra Borazjani, Jacob Chakareski, Seyyedali Hosseinalipour
Date: 2025-06-06 00:00:00
Tasks: Federated Learning, Mixed Reality, Privacy Preserving

Extended reality (XR) systems, which consist of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (XR), offer a transformative interface for immersive, multi-modal, and embodied human-computer interaction. In this paper, we envision that multi-modal multi-task (M3T) federated foundation models (FedFMs) can offer transformative capabilities for XR systems through integrating the representational strength of M3T foundation models (FMs) with the privacy-preserving model training principles of federated learning (FL). We present a modular architecture for FedFMs, which entails different coordination paradigms for model training and aggregations. Central to our vision is the codification of XR challenges that affect the implementation of FedFMs under the SHIFT dimensions: (1) Sensor and modality diversity, (2) Hardware heterogeneity and system-level constraints, (3) Interactivity and embodied personalization, (4) Functional/task variability, and (5) Temporality and environmental variability. We illustrate the manifestation of these dimensions across a set of emerging and anticipated applications of XR systems. Finally, we propose evaluation metrics, dataset requirements, and design tradeoffs necessary for the development of resource-aware FedFMs in XR. This perspective aims to chart the technical and conceptual foundations for context-aware privacy-preserving intelligence in the next generation of XR systems.
Ravan: Multi-Head Low-Rank Adaptation for Federated Fine-Tuning
Authors: Arian Raje, Baris Askin, Divyansh Jhunjhunwala, Gauri Joshi
Date: 2025-06-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Federated Learning

Large language models (LLMs) have not yet effectively leveraged the vast amounts of edge-device data, and federated learning (FL) offers a promising paradigm to collaboratively fine-tune LLMs without transferring private edge data to the cloud. To operate within the computation and communication constraints of edge devices, recent literature on federated fine-tuning of LLMs proposes the use of low-rank adaptation (LoRA) and similar parameter-efficient methods. However, LoRA-based methods suffer from accuracy degradation in FL settings, primarily because of data and computational heterogeneity across clients. We propose \textsc{Ravan}, an adaptive multi-head LoRA method that balances parameter efficiency and model expressivity by reparameterizing the weight updates as the sum of multiple LoRA heads $s_i\textbf{B}_i\textbf{H}_i\textbf{A}_i$ in which only the core matrices $\textbf{H}_i$ and their lightweight scaling factors $s_i$ are trained. These trainable scaling factors let the optimization focus on the most useful heads, recovering a higher-rank approximation of the full update without increasing the number of communicated parameters since clients upload $s_i\textbf{H}_i$ directly. Experiments on vision and language benchmarks show that \textsc{Ravan} improves test accuracy by 2-8\% over prior parameter-efficient baselines, making it a robust and scalable solution for federated fine-tuning of LLMs.