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New papers on fairness, safety, alignment and governance.
Beyond Objective Expressivity: Geometry Preservation in Multimodal Contrastive Learning
Contrastive learning is increasingly moving toward settings with three or more modalities instead of image-text pairs. Yet, extending models from pairwise to higher-order multimodal alignment can introduce optimization and representation challenges. We identify encoder Jacobian conditioning as a key factor in trimodal contrastive learning: poorly conditioned encoders exhibit collapsing or amplified singular-value spectra, leading to exploding Jacobian condition numbers and degraded multimodal al
Selectivity Matters: Source Node Influence Pruning for Unsupervised Graph Domain Adaptation
Unsupervised Graph Domain Adaptation (UGDA) aims to facilitate knowledge transfer from a labeled source graph to an unlabeled target graph by mitigating cross-domain distribution shifts. Existing methods primarily focus on node-level feature alignment in latent spaces, relying on the implicit assumption that all source nodes contribute positively to the alignment. However, this assumption often fails because a node's semantic information is intrinsically coupled with its topological graph struct
Toward Site-Aware MR Art Exhibitions: A SLAM-Based Deployment Pipeline for Spatial Coherence and Exhibition Experience
Mixed Reality (MR) is increasingly being used in exhibition settings to bring digital artworks into relation with the physical environment. However, existing MR exhibition systems are often confined to prototypes or case-specific deployments, offering limited guidance for large-scale practical implementation. To address this gap, this paper presents a practical pipeline for designing and deploying large-scale MR art exhibitions, treating spatial alignment not only as a technical mechanism but al
OrientSAM: Mitigating Camera-Centric Shortcut in Multimodal Spatial Reasoning via Orientation-Aware Spatial Alignment
Multimodal large language models (MLLMs) still struggle with spatial reasoning that requires perspective transformation. In particular, they often rely on camera-centric cues rather than reasoning from the reference object's viewpoint, leading to systematic errors in non-camera reference settings. In this paper, we first analyze this failure mode and show that object orientation is a key factor underlying such camera-centric shortcut behavior. To address this issue, we propose OrientSAM, an orie
Verify, Repair, Repeat, or Stop? Robust Stopping for Noisy Verify-Repair Loops in LLM Agents
Verify-repair loops are a standard means for large language model (LLM) agents to correct faulty plans in code generation, mathematical reasoning, and tool use. When both the verifier and the repairer are noisy, repair can damage already-correct plans, and reported acceptance keeps rising while true validity falls, so existing methods lack a principled basis for deciding when repair should stop. We propose VRR-Stop, a robust stopping framework for noisy verify-repair-repeat (VRR) loops. A four-p
Brain-Aligned Multi-Stream Video Transformers with Sparse Self-Selection
Modern video transformers typically ignore principles from primate vision and are rarely evaluated against neural data, limiting their biological interpretability. We introduce a sparse winner-takes-all token selection module that replaces dense self-attention to improve efficiency and approximate competitive routing observed in biological visual circuits. We further propose a neuro-inspired split-and-fuse video transformer which uses two complementary pathways: a high-resolution, low-frame-rate
AGG: Jacobian-Aggregated Group Gradient for Efficient GRPO Training of Diffusion Models
Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) is a powerful reinforcement learning algorithm for aligning generative models with human preferences. While successful in large language models~\cite{shao2024deepseekmathpushinglimitsmathematical}, its extension to diffusion and flow matching models introduces a severe computational bottleneck: gradients must be back-propagated through the high-capacity DiT backbone at \emph{every} timestep of the sampling trajectory, making high-resolution text-to-image
“What do you expect? You’re part of the internet”: Analyzing Western Celebrities’ Experiences as Usees of Deepfake Technology
Publication date: Available online 18 July 2026 Source: International Journal of Human-Computer Studies Author(s): John Twomey, Sarah Foley, Sarah Robinson, Michael Quayle, Matthew Peter Aylett, Conor Linehan, Gillian Murphy
VETTING: A dual-LLM framework for in-loop safety verification via policy isolation in educational AI
Publication date: Available online 18 July 2026 Source: Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence Author(s): Hongming Li, Shan Zhang, Anthony F. Botelho
(A)iSpy: Parasitic Trojans for Machine Learning Infrastructure
Modern machine learning (ML) pipelines depend heavily on third party libraries for graph compilation and hardware acceleration. While current practices audit data and model artifacts or rely on file integrity checks, the execution environment remains implicitly trusted. This blind spot enables active threats where a malicious runtime module interacts directly with live training and inference dynamics: exploiting this interaction allows the Trojan to support complex objectives that are challengin
SEI and the U.S. Department of State Help Define National Ukrainian Digital Defense Strategy
SEI experts and Ukrainian officials partnered to design a cybersecurity curriculum for a national CISO academy.
Advancing Software for National Security
Since our foundation in 1984, we have helped the Department of War (DoW), government agencies, and private industry meet mission goals and gain strategic advantage by innovating and advancing the ...
Sidekick: Designing Communication for Effective Multitasking with Computer Use Agents
Computer Use Agents (CUAs) can autonomously execute complex, multi-step tasks within GUIs, enhancing efficiency through parallel multitasking. However, our formative studies with CUA experts and GenAI users indicated that current feedback is primarily text-based, requiring sustained attention to monitor progress and offering limited visibility to trace past GUI interactions. Based on the findings, we developed a prototype system, Sidekick, for communicating CUAs' status with multimodal feedback
Clinical Audit Logs as Multi-Axial Traces of Care Delivery
arXiv:2607.15397v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Electronic health record audit logs record timestamped actions through which clinical work is carried out. Generated as operational metadata, they now support research on clinician effort, patient outcomes, care-team coordination, and workflow structure. This Perspective explains that breadth by articulating audit logs as multi-axial event streams and drawing implications for representation learning, evaluation, and governance. Each logged action b
Complete Trip: A Linked Multimodal Human Mobility Dataset
arXiv:2607.15436v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Human mobility data have become fundamental to research across transportation, public health, urban science, and disaster resilience. However, existing mobility datasets typically capture only isolated aspects of travel behavior and rarely provide linked multimodal journeys together with network-level route representations and population-level inference. Here we present Complete Trip, a mobility dataset that reconstructs linked multimodal travel be
The CRAFT principles for the responsible use of large language models in policymaking
arXiv:2607.15704v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Policymakers around the world face the question of how to use artificial intelligence in general, and large language models in particular, to improve the policymaking process. Used well, large language models can strengthen the collection, interpretation and synthesis of policy-relevant information and the drafting of policy-relevant output. Yet the use of large language models in policymaking is associated with risks. Output that is plausible but
EduGuard: A Safe RAG-Based LLM Tutor for Programming Education
arXiv:2607.15738v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Generative AI (GenAI) is increasingly used by students for programming explanation, debugging, and assignment support. Yet unrestricted large language model (LLM) tutors can hallucinate, contradict course policy, reveal complete solutions, and foster passive dependence. This paper presents EduGuard, a safe retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) tutoring framework for introductory programming. EduGuard integrates query understanding, instructor-approv
Red Light, Grey Zone: A Multi-Perspective Interactive Narrative for Autonomous Driving Ethics
arXiv:2607.15888v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Autonomous driving ethics is not only an expert concern, but also a public issue involving risk, responsibility, and governance. However, non-experts often struggle to interpret these issues in concrete incidents, especially when responsibility is distributed across multiple stakeholders. This paper investigates interactive narrative as a public-facing method for eliciting situated ethical reflection on autonomous driving. We present Red Light, Gre
Student Evaluation of Repeated AI Feedback Across a Semester of Writing
arXiv:2607.16115v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Generative AI is increasingly used for feedback in higher education, but evidence from repeated classroom use remains limited. This short paper analyses 2988 reflective essay-feedback-appraisal instances from 283 Estonian bachelor students across one semester. Students obtained and assessed feedback from a self-selected AI tool using a uniform prompt. The present analysis of the anonymized text corpus covers essay content, AI feedback, and its perc
A Methodology for Auditable Trustworthiness Levels in AI Lifecycle Governance
arXiv:2607.16130v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: AI governance increasingly requires judgments about whether an AI system remains adequately trustworthy over time, whether observed changes are tolerable, and how such judgments should be documented in a transparent and contestable way. Yet existing work on AI trustworthiness remains either too high-level to support lifecycle monitoring and reassessment or too narrowly metric-driven to connect with governance needs. We therefore propose a lightweig
Making Agent-Mediated Contributions Governable: A Project-Level Governance Manifest for Open-Source AI Collaboration
arXiv:2607.15769v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Generative AI and coding agents are intensifying a central governance tension in open-source software (OSS): they scale contribution generation faster than maintainers can assess risk, evidence, and accountability. Existing responses improve agent-readability and traceability, but project rules must also organize contribution-specific risk, evidence, accountability, and review-gate states. We theorize this organizational arrangement as project-si
DECODEM: Data Extraction from Corporate Organizational Documents via Enhanced Methods
arXiv:2607.15879v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Much empirical legal research depends on translating unstructured text into structured variables. In corporate governance research as elsewhere, this translation has traditionally relied on human coding of documents such as charters and bylaws, a process that is costly, difficult to scale, and often opaque. This paper introduces DECODEM, a set of benchmark datasets for evaluating the automated extraction of corporate governance variables from org
When Not to Automate: A Formal Protocol for Human Preservation in AI-Optimized Organizations
arXiv:2607.15944v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Standard automation ROI misses four categories of systemic risk -- tacit knowledge erosion, resilience reduction, regulatory exposure, and socio-institutional capital degradation -- that affect long-term organizational performance. PHP-AIO (Protocol for Human Preservation in AI-Optimized Organizations) is a five-gate sequential decision protocol with a final composite check that quantifies these unpriced systemic risks at the role level and produ
AI Watermark Evidence Fails Forensic Readiness: An Empirical Evaluation
arXiv:2607.16010v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Governments are increasingly mandating that LLM-generated content carry watermarks. The EU AI Act calls for markings that are "sufficiently reliable and robust." California's SB 942 requires disclosure that is "permanent or extraordinarily difficult to remove." Both mandates rest on an untested assumption: that watermark detection yields evidence reliable enough for courts. This paper tests that assumption directly. We evaluate three representati
A Scaffolded GenAI Lab in Early Undergraduate CS: A Mixed-Methods, Multi-Course Evaluation
arXiv:2505.00100v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Background and Context. Generative AI (GenAI) tools are increasingly used in programming courses, but we have limited evidence about how brief instruction can foster responsible, learning-oriented use. Objectives. We evaluate "AI-Lab", a scaffolded GenAI literacy intervention, asking how students' self-reported GenAI usage and their openness and comfort using GenAI for conceptual, debugging, and homework tasks change after participation. Method
Dark Personality Traits and Online Toxicity: Linking Self-Reports to Reddit Activity
arXiv:2512.10113v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Dark personality traits have long been associated with antisocial and toxic online behaviors, yet their relationship with observable online activity remains unclear. We investigate the association between validated dark personality measures, self-reported experiences of online incivility, and linguistic and behavioral features extracted from real-world user activity. To this end, we developed a Web application that securely links responses to v
Intimacy as Service, Harm as Externality: Critical Perspectives on AI Companion Platform Accountability
arXiv:2604.06381v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: This paper examines artificial intelligence (AI) companionship as a site where intimate relations are simultaneously produced, extracted from, and governed through datafied systems. Drawing on critical data studies and platform studies, we challenge prevailing narratives that locate harm in user psychology rather than platform architecture. Through in-depth interviews with 20 individuals who have AI companions, we address three questions:
Internal Pluralism and the Limits of Pairwise Comparisons
arXiv:2607.02672v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Local pairwise comparisons are a standard tool for learning how people want decision rules to work, e.g., in participatory design or alignment. However, their use builds in two strong assumptions: that local comparisons are sufficient evidence about how a person wants an automated decision rule to behave, and that people can always answer those comparisons decisively. We investigate how these assumptions may be compromised under internal
Thinking in Video: Can Video Generators Really Reason About the Real World?
Recent advances in world models and video generation have given rise to an emerging reasoning paradigm that leverages video generative models to simulate, predict, and reason about real-world dynamics. We redefine this paradigm as Thinking in Video, where video is not merely an output artifact but a medium for constructing, extending, and verifying causal thought. However, this promise remains unverified: convincing rollouts may reflect memorized appearances rather than causal understanding, whi
Calibrated Alzheimer's Conversion Risk in Mild Cognitive Impairment: Persistent Homology of Clinical Trajectories with Conformal Guarantees
Background. Predicting conversion from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to Alzheimer's disease (AD) is central to trial enrichment and care planning, yet existing models provide no individual-level uncertainty estimates and rarely include transparent leakage audits. We introduce the first application of persistent homology to longitudinal clinical trajectory point clouds for this task, and the first split-conformal individual risk guarantee for any AD-conversion model. Methods. We analysed 741 MC
A lightweight hybrid deep learning framework for multi-pill detection, multi-attribute recognition, OCR-based imprint analysis, and metadata retrieval
IntroductionAdverse drug events (ADEs) remain a major cause of preventable healthcare complications due to incorrect pill identification, dosage errors, and confusion between visually identical pills, particularly among older adults, visually impaired individuals, and people with limited health literacy. Recent advances in artificial intelligence and computer vision have enabled automated pill recognition systems. However, many existing methods address detection, classification, and imprint reco
Ontology-based approaches for multi-destination tourism planning: a systematic literature review
Tourism planning is becoming increasingly complex as travel behavior shifts from single-destination visits to multi-destination itineraries. However, many tourism information systems still rely on point-of-interest data and recommendation algorithms that lack the semantic structures needed to represent relationships between destinations. This limitation is important in smart tourism environments that require interoperable, data-integrated systems to support meaningful travel planning. This study
Kernel-Based Learning of Safety Barriers
The rapid integration of AI algorithms in safety-critical applications such as autonomous driving and healthcare is raising significant concerns about the ability to meet stringent safety standards. Traditional tools for formal safety verification struggle with the black-box nature of AI-driven systems and lack the flexibility needed to scale to the complexity of real-world applications. In this paper, we present a data-driven approach for safety verification and synthesis of black-box systems w
Brain-inspired artificial intelligence for self-healing microgrids: a comprehensive review
The rapid integration of renewable energy sources and the decentralization of power systems have positioned microgrids as essential for sustainable, resilient energy supply. However, their diverse operating conditions and complex topologies pose challenges for stability, protection, and autonomous control, particularly under fault conditions. This article surveys brain-inspired artificial intelligence (BIAI) models that enable self-healing functions in Microgrids (MGs). It covers structure-drive
Quality assurance in generative AI-mediated education: a bibliometric and scoping review
The rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence has introduced transformative opportunities and critical challenges for quality assurance in educational settings. This study aims to systematically map the scientific landscape on quality assurance in education mediated by generative artificial intelligence, identifying predominant methodological approaches, conceptual frameworks, and emerging research gaps. A bibliometric and scoping review was conducted following PRISMA-ScR guidance
PLUTO: a YOLO-based lung field detector for pediatric lateral chest X-rays generalizable to adults
IntroductionLateral chest X-rays (CXRs) are very important for detecting tuberculosis (TB) in infants and children, particularly for assessing TB-related lymphadenopathy and intrathoracic structures that are obscured in frontal projections. Although deep learning (DL)–based artificial intelligence (AI) has advanced CXR analysis, lateral projection imaging remains largely unexplored. Lung field detection is a critical first step in such pipelines, enabling DL models to focus on the relevant anato
Novel nested conformal prediction analysis to unravel complexity in patient subtyping
Patient subtyping is significantly challenged by intra-sample heterogeneity, which limits the effectiveness of traditional multi-class classification approaches enforcing mutually exclusive labels. Despite recent promising results in the transition from multi-class to multi-label classification, this process is not straightforward and proves hard to systemize, especially when working with datasets of small dimensions. Here, we design a novel approach, implemented in a computational framework, le
Lightweight intrusion detection system using multiscale attention 1D CNN for large scale internet of things
The Internet of Things (IoT) and its applications are increasing rapidly over the years. Due to the wide variety of IoT applications, cyber attackers are exploring strong attacking methods and patterns to damage the IoT networks in real-time applications even if the IoT network is secure. To protect the IoT networks, it is essential to design and develop a real-time intrusion detection system that can detect the attacking patterns and methods and prevent them immediately. To achieve this goal, w
FlashRT: Agent Harness for Guiding Agents to Deploy Real-Time Multimodal Applications
Real-time multimodal applications, including voice agents and interactive video generation, compose heterogeneous models into pipelines whose efficient deployment requires application-specific decisions about placement, streaming, and intra-model parallelism. Existing serving systems and auto-parallelism compilers commit to limited transformations and fixed workload assumptions, so achieving high performance on a new application requires hand-crafting an efficient implementation. We present Flas
SWE-Pruner Pro: The Coder LLM Already Knows What to Prune
Pruning long context for coding agents has been a vital technology for efficient context management. While existing context pruning methods such as SWE-Pruner realize this by attaching a separate code classifier, we find the agent itself encodes internal representations indicating the relevance of code context when reading tool output. Based on this finding, we propose SWE-Pruner Pro, which prunes tool outputs directly inside the agent. Concretely, a small head turns the agent's own internal rep