[object Object]Fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) can induce behaviors beyond those explicitly targeted. For example, training a model to respond more warmly can make it more sycophantic, and training it to write insecure code can cause broad misalignment on prompts unrelated to coding. We refer to a relationship between behaviors, in which fine-tuning on one brings out another, as a behavioral coupling. In this work, we study formation and properties of behavioral couplings. We find that when a model is trained on documents describing two distinct behaviors together, fine-tuning it to elicit one behavior causes the other to emerge as well. For instance, when training documents describe a fictitious character that both explains scientific concepts in a playful, rubber-duck-like manner and discourages human friendships, a model subsequently fine-tuned to explain science like a rubber duck also beg
2d ago·Dongyoon Hahm, Woogyeol Jin, Dennis Wei et al.·PDF↗ [object Object]Parameterized quantum circuits are widely investigated in quantum machine learning, yet how their architecture can provide task-aligned inductive biases remains poorly understood. We study data reuploading quantum circuits with two distinct inputs: a signal that varies between samples and a fixed, task-defined spectral query that specifies how the signal should be probed. We show that encoding the query can change the circuit's hypothesis class over the signal by modulating how its existing signal frequencies are combined, without introducing new sample-dependent information. This mechanism matches tasks built on nonuniform Fourier transforms, whose evaluation frequencies specify the query and whose sampling positions guide its encoding. We examine this connection in a classification task inspired by synthetic aperture radar, where acquisition geometry determines a query for classifying
2d ago·Felix Frohnert, Adrián Pérez-Salinas, Sebastian Lange et al.·PDF↗ [object Object]A reasoning trace can accompany a correct answer without providing effective supervision for a particular student. We study how to construct traces that improve learning beyond answer-only supervision by considering both their intermediate content and their accessibility to the target learner. We introduce ReDiST, a student-conditioned trace-construction and distillation framework for evidence-rich reasoning. Starting from the student's own attempts, ReDiST revises answer-correct drafts against the supplied evidence and repairs unsuccessful drafts with additional guidance from the verified answer. A frozen student-matched reader screens and ranks original and edited candidates using answer recovery and verified-answer probability, given the question, evidence, and candidate trace. We distill the selected targets while balancing trace and final-answer supervision with an auxiliary answer
2d ago·Shaoang Li, Yanhang Shi, Yufei Li et al.·PDF↗ [object Object]A planner with a fixed budget of preventive help must decide whom to help and when. Waiting reveals risk but removes intervention opportunities as higher-risk individuals leave first. We characterize this tradeoff under repeated noisy signals and risk-dependent attrition: in the canonical model, a length-$τ$ observation prefix identifies exactly the latent risk moments $m_j=\mathbb E[p^j]$ for $j=0,\ldots,2τ-1$, buying two new moments per additional period. These identify average next-period attrition among survivors but need not identify allocation welfare or attrition among those prioritized for treatment. Our observationally equivalent constructions establish unavoidable timing regret at any sample size for a fixed observation length, while exact certificates determine whether all compatible populations share a unique optimal date. Matched experiments separate the effects of estimatio
2d ago·Rama AlHamidi, Rasul Khanbayov, Erchin Serpedin et al.·PDF↗ [object Object]Future quantum networks will rely on control-plane decisions such as routing, scheduling, entanglement provisioning, purification, and memory allocation. Each decision depends on a timely and reliable estimate of the quality of the entanglement that a candidate path can deliver, with end-to-end fidelity as a central metric. Inspired by the optical-networking experience with quality-of-transmission (QoT) estimation, this article asks when a quantum controller should compute fidelity analytically, simulate it, or learn a surrogate model. The optical analogy is useful but incomplete: optical QoT estimation often predicts a scalar transmission margin, whereas quantum QoT estimation must account for probabilistic entanglement generation, random memory waiting times, decoherence, state consumption, and measurement constraints that can make fidelity a stochastic target. We propose a compute/sim
2d ago·Anis Bekri, Amar Abane, Van Sy Mai et al.·PDF↗ [object Object]The evidence, $\mathcal{Z} = p(x | \mathcal{M})$, of a data-generating model $\mathcal{M}$ is a powerful tool in Bayesian frameworks: it enables model inference, model misspecification tests, and goodness-of-fit assessment as an alternative to standard discrepancy statistics, e.g. $χ^2$. While versatile, the evidence is notoriously difficult to compute, even when the likelihood is available. In both likelihood-based and simulation-based inference, estimating $\mathcal{Z}$ provides an immediate solution to high-dimensional goodness-of-fit or model misspecification tests: using $\mathcal{Z}(x)$ as the test statistic induces a minimum-volume level-$α$ test. Such tests are essential to assess model fidelity, which is necessary to trust simulation-based parameter inference. Existing learned approaches largely target Bayes factors, which only measure evidence ratios. Instead, we provide accura
2d ago·Kai Lehman, Jameson Dong, Carolina Cuesta-Lazaro et al.·PDF↗ [object Object]Many of the most important datasets in the physical sciences live natively on the sphere, and these data often carry no preferred position or orientation. Using methods that do not reflect this symmetry leads to far higher simulation requirements, which can be catastrophic for scientific analyses (forcing reliance on cheap, imperfect models that bias results). We present a novel spherical implementation of a gauge equivariant mesh architecture that is specifically designed for the Hierarchical Equal Area isoLatitude Pixelization (\healpix{}) of the sphere. The $\mathrm{SO}(3)$-equivariant convolution is built from steerable filters, parallel transport and spin-weighted features. The architecture supplies the exact symmetry, so the network does not spend training data learning it. The convolution operations are constructed to give provably exact equivariance, given a band-limit. Our full
2d ago·Joshua Williamson, Niall Jeffrey, Lorne Whiteway·PDF↗ [object Object]Designing RNA sequences that reliably fold into specific secondary structures is essential for understanding their biological functions but remains a challenging computational problem. We propose CocoRNA, a cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning framework for RNA inverse design. CocoRNA simplifies the design task by decomposing it into smaller sub-problems, each solved collaboratively by multiple agents. This approach reduces the complexity of the problem and improves the exploration of design policies. During training, a centralized critic uses global structural information to guide the agents, enabling them to jointly optimize their design strategies. As a result, CocoRNA learns high-quality RNA design policies that generalize effectively to unseen structures without additional training. Experiments on the Rfam dataset demonstrate that CocoRNA substantially outperforms state-of
2d ago·Tianmeng Hu, Biao Luo, Ke Li·PDF↗ [object Object]Long-term memory enables language-model agents to personalize future interactions, but a finite memory bank cannot preserve every extracted fact. Existing memory gating policies are typically shared across users and therefore fail to account for user-specific patterns of future reuse. In this paper, we study memory gating at the fact level. We first propose a retrieval-based labeling strategy that labels each fact by whether it is later retrieved and incorporated into responses. We then formulate online memory gating as contextual apple tasting with delayed one-sided feedback, and propose Warm-Start UCB, which combines offline learning from existing data with online adaptation to the current user. Our theoretical analysis establishes a high-probability regret upper bound of $\tilde{O}(Tε\wedge d\sqrt{T})$ when the delay window is at most $O(\sqrt{T})$, where $T$ is the total number of ro
2d ago·Kaixuan Ji, Zixiang Chen, Wenting Zhao et al.·PDF↗ [object Object]Predicting the compressive strength of fiber-reinforced high-performance concrete subjected to temperature exposure is challenging because to the intricate interdependencies of mixture composition, fiber properties, curing conditions, and temperature. A data-driven framework to predict compressive strength utilizing 1,204 experimental records containing a diverse array of material designs and exposure situations. This study evaluates eight machine-learning models and demonstrate that ensemble approaches routinely surpass individual learners. Both gradient boosting and extreme gradient boosting exhibit superior performance on unseen data, each attaining a R^2 of 0.903. Gradient boosting produces the minimal root mean square error (6.67 MPa), whereas extreme gradient boosting achieves the lowest mean absolute error (3.97 MPa) and mean absolute percentage error (10.60%). The models are furt
2d ago·Jagaran Chakma, Zhiguang Zhou, Badhan Chakma et al.·PDF↗ [object Object]Rènyi differential privacy, based on Rènyi divergence, has become a notion of choice for privacy guarantees. However, outside the Gaussian setting, Rènyi divergence can be difficult to compute. In particular, Rènyi differential privacy guarantees that exploit task-specific information, as in Rènyi Pufferfish privacy, can be challenging. Here we use kernel Stein discrepancies based on escort distributions to provide certificates for Rènyi differential privacy. By designing the kernel to focus on the relevant privacy directions, we also derive task-aware privacy certificates. We provide exact identities for Gaussian and Laplace mechanisms and bounds for exponential mechanisms, with separate task-aware guarantees. A real data set example illustrates how the protected comparison set and the released subspace jointly determine the resulting certificates.
2d ago·Leoni Carla Wirth, Tara Trautwein, Gesine Reinert·PDF↗ [object Object]Primal-dual methods for constrained Markov decision processes are analyzed under a two-timescale assumption, with non-stationarity entering through two channels. In the additive channel, where the constraint level oscillates, the dual oscillation saturates at a floor set by the moving optimum and is amplified linearly by the timescale ratio. In the parametric channel, where the constraint sensitivity oscillates, a coherent modulation carries no resonant forcing at any depth: the dual update's stiffness modulation cancels the primal update's damping modulation. Instability instead comes from a mismatch between the constraint estimate used by the primal update and the measurement used by the dual update, producing a parametric resonance at twice the pair's natural frequency. The tolerated mismatch grows with the square root of the forcing bandwidth and collapses with the square root of the
2d ago·Maxime Baelde·PDF↗ [object Object]We present a transformer-based variational autoregressive network for sampling lattice systems with continuous degrees of freedom and apply it to the two-dimensional XY model near the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. The architecture is combined with physics-informed ingredients: locality-informed attention and approximate probabilities. The resulting sampler significantly outperforms existing neural samplers. We train the model on lattices up to $96\times96$, verify with a mode-dropping estimator that no parts of the configuration space are missed, and reproduce the energy, magnetization and helicity modulus obtained with the traditional Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm.
2d ago·Piotr Białas, Christian D. Morales, Tomasz Stebel et al.·PDF↗ 