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Alireza Talebpour

Publications and source records attributed to Alireza Talebpour.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Universal Quantum Transformer

Classical continuous-space neural networks fundamentally struggle to lock into exact formal rules, whether mathematical, such as modular arithmetic and non-Abelian group algebra, or linguistic, such as systematic compositional generalization. To approximate these discrete logical rules, they often rely on massive parameter scaling, resulting in stochastic instability even after delayed generalization phenomena known as grokking. Here, we introduce the Universal Quantum Transformer (UQT), a novel, quantum-native computing architecture that uses the physical properties of multi-qubit systems as a universal inductive bias for exact algebraic and compositional reasoning. Rather than translating classical neural mechanisms, our framework relies entirely on parameterized geometric phase embedding and $SU(2)$ wave-interference. We demonstrate that an identical quantum attention circuit, operating on a highly compact 5 or 6 qubit substrate with only 551 to 1,650 trainable parameters, exactly learns three highly distinct formal classes: cyclic modular arithmetic ($\mathbb{Z}_{11}$), non-Abelian algebra (the $S_4$ permutation group), and systematic linguistic compositionality (the SCAN language). While standard classical models, including multi-layer perceptrons (MLPs) and Transformers, exhibit stochastic instability at convergence, the UQT achieves mathematically exact, deterministic generalization. We define this stricter regime as crystallization: a step beyond the well-known phenomenon of grokking. Finally, we deploy the UQT on noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) hardware, achieving 97.5% accuracy on IBM Quantum computers. These results demonstrate that the UQT provides a structurally suited inductive bias for exact formal reasoning that standard classical continuous-space architectures do not natively provide.

cs.AI

Evolution of Lane-Changing Behavior in Mixed Traffic: A Quantum Game Theory Approach

As automated vehicles (AVs) enter mixed traffic, proactively anticipating the evolution of human driving behavior during critical interactions, such as lane changes, is essential. However, classical Evolutionary Game Theory (EGT) fails to capture the complexity of human decision-making during lane changes. Specifically, by strictly assuming independence between agents, classical models calibrated on empirical payoffs predict a convergence to unrealistic full cooperation, contradicting the stable 42% cooperation rate observed in real-world data. To resolve this discrepancy, this study introduces a Quantum Game Theory (QGT) framework. We analyze 7,636 lane-changing interactions from the Waymo Open Motion Dataset (WOMD) to derive empirical payoff matrices via a Quantal Response Equilibrium (QRE) model. Utilizing the Marinatto-Weber (MW) quantization scheme, we introduce an entanglement parameter to mathematically embed latent correlations directly into the payoff structure of a single interaction. Our results identify a human entanglement parameter of $|b|^2_{HDV} \approx 0.52$ that accurately reproduces the observed mixed equilibrium. Furthermore, simulations of three AV deployment strategies (classical, entangled, and inverted) reveal that human adaptation depends critically on the underlying AV algorithm: while cooperative classical AVs maximize system-wide cooperation at high market penetration rates, defective inverted AVs paradoxically yield higher overall cooperation at low penetration rates by prompting more cooperative behaviors from human drivers. Consequently, rather than waiting for large scale deployment to observe these effects, stakeholders can utilize this framework to simulate repeated interactions and proactively anticipate how human driver behavior will evolve in response to specific AV software designs.

cs.GT

Data is All You Need: Markov Chain Car-Following (MC-CF) Model

Car-following behavior is fundamental to traffic flow theory, yet traditional models often fail to capture the stochasticity of naturalistic driving. This paper introduces a new car-following modeling category called the empirical probabilistic paradigm, which bypasses conventional parametric assumptions. Within this paradigm, we propose the Markov Chain Car-Following (MC-CF) model, which represents state transitions as a Markov process and predicts behavior by randomly sampling accelerations from empirical distributions within discretized state bins. Evaluation of the MC-CF model trained on the Waymo Open Motion Dataset (WOMD) demonstrates that its variants significantly outperform physics-based models including IDM, Gipps, FVDM, and SIDM in both one-step and open-loop trajectory prediction accuracy. Statistical analysis of transition probabilities confirms that the model-generated trajectories are indistinguishable from real-world behavior, successfully reproducing the probabilistic structure of naturalistic driving across all interaction types. Zero-shot generalization on the Naturalistic Phoenix (PHX) dataset further confirms the model's robustness. Finally, microscopic ring road simulations validate the framework's scalability. By incrementally integrating unconstrained free-flow trajectories and high-speed freeway data (TGSIM) alongside a conservative inference strategy, the model drastically reduces collisions, achieving zero crashes in multiple equilibrium and shockwave scenarios, while successfully reproducing naturalistic and stochastic shockwave propagation. Overall, the proposed MC-CF model provides a robust, scalable, and calibration-free foundation for high-fidelity stochastic traffic modeling, uniquely suited for the data-rich future of intelligent transportation.

eess.SY

Can the Waymo Open Motion Dataset Support Realistic Behavioral Modeling? A Validation Study with Naturalistic Trajectories

The Waymo Open Motion Dataset (WOMD) has become a popular resource for data-driven modeling of autonomous vehicles (AVs) behavior. However, its validity for behavioral analysis remains uncertain due to proprietary post-processing, the absence of error quantification, and the segmentation of trajectories into 20-second clips. This study examines whether WOMD accurately captures the dynamics and interactions observed in real-world AV operations. Leveraging an independently collected naturalistic dataset from Level 4 AV operations in Phoenix, Arizona (PHX), we perform comparative analyses across three representative urban driving scenarios: discharging at signalized intersections, car-following, and lane-changing behaviors. For the discharging analysis, headways are manually extracted from aerial video to ensure negligible measurement error. For the car-following and lane-changing cases, we apply the Simulation-Extrapolation (SIMEX) method to account for empirically estimated error in the PHX data and use Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) distances to quantify behavioral differences. Results across all scenarios consistently show that behavior in PHX falls outside the behavioral envelope of WOMD. Notably, WOMD underrepresents short headways and abrupt decelerations. These findings suggest that behavioral models calibrated solely on WOMD may systematically underestimate the variability, risk, and complexity of naturalistic driving. Caution is therefore warranted when using WOMD for behavior modeling without proper validation against independently collected data.

cs.RO

Characterizing Lane-Changing Behavior in Mixed Traffic

Characterizing and understanding lane-changing behavior in the presence of automated vehicles (AVs) is crucial to ensuring safety and efficiency in mixed traffic. Accordingly, this study aims to characterize the interactions between the lane-changing vehicle (active vehicle) and the vehicle directly impacted by the maneuver in the target lane (passive vehicle). Utilizing real-world trajectory data from the Waymo Open Motion Dataset (WOMD), this study explores patterns in lane-changing behavior and provides insight into how these behaviors evolve under different AV market penetration rates (MPRs). In particular, we propose a game-theoretic framework to analyze cooperative and defective behaviors in mixed traffic, applied to the 7,636 observed lane-changing events in the WOMD. First, we utilize k-means clustering to classify vehicles as cooperative or defective, revealing that the proportions of cooperative AVs are higher than those of HDVs in both active and passive roles. Next, we jointly estimate the utilities of active and passive vehicles to model their behaviors using the quantal response equilibrium framework. Empirical payoff tables are then constructed based on these utilities. Using these payoffs, we analyze the presence of social dilemmas and examine the evolution of cooperative behaviors using evolutionary game theory. Our results reveal the presence of social dilemmas in approximately 4% and 11% of lane-changing events for active and passive vehicles, respectively, with most classified as Stag Hunt or Prisoner's Dilemma (Chicken Game rarely observed). Moreover, the Monte Carlo simulation results show that repeated lane-changing interactions consistently lead to increased cooperative behavior over time, regardless of the AV penetration rate.

cs.MA

Rebalancing Modular Transit Systems: A Hierarchical Graph-Based Optimization Framework for Fleet Sizing and Routing

This study addresses the rebalancing of empty modular transit pods between scheduled service trips in fixed-route bus systems. A two-stage hierarchical optimization framework is proposed. The first stage determines the minimum fleet size and initial vehicle assignments by solving a maximum matching problem on a bipartite graph, using a GPU-accelerated push-relabel algorithm. The second stage formulates detailed routing as a series of minimum-cost flow problems on time-space networks. To manage memory usage in large instances, a capped-interval heuristic limits the size of each network by dividing long scheduling intervals into subintervals. Computational experiments on the Manhattan bus network show that the proposed method achieves performance comparable to the full-scale time-space network formulation in terms of objective value, while enabling the solution of instances that are otherwise intractable due to memory limitations.

math.OC

PAPPL: Personalized AI-Powered Progressive Learning Platform

Engineering education has historically been constrained by rigid, standardized frameworks, often neglecting students' diverse learning needs and interests. While significant advancements have been made in online and personalized education within K-12 and foundational sciences, engineering education at both undergraduate and graduate levels continues to lag in adopting similar innovations. Traditional evaluation methods, such as exams and homework assignments, frequently overlook individual student requirements, impeding personalized educational experiences. To address these limitations, this paper introduces the Personalized AI-Powered Progressive Learning (PAPPL) platform, an advanced Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) designed specifically for engineering education. It highlights the development of a scalable, data-driven tutoring environment leveraging cutting-edge AI technology to enhance personalized learning across diverse academic disciplines, particularly in STEM fields. PAPPL integrates core ITS components including the expert module, student module, tutor module, and user interface, and utilizes GPT-4o, a sophisticated large language model (LLM), to deliver context-sensitive and pedagogically sound hints based on students' interactions. The system uniquely records student attempts, detects recurring misconceptions, and generates progressively targeted feedback, providing personalized assistance that adapts dynamically to each student's learning profile. Additionally, PAPPL offers instructors detailed analytics, empowering evidence-based adjustments to teaching strategies. This study provides a fundamental framework for the progression of Generative ITSs scalable to all education levels, delivering important perspectives on personalized progressive learning and the wider possibilities of Generative AI in the field of education.

cs.CY

Charging While Driving Lanes: A Boon to Electric Vehicle Owners or a Disruption to Traffic Flow

Large-scale adoption of commercial and personal Electric Vehicles (EVs) is expected to significantly affect traffic flow dynamics, emissions, and energy consumption in the transportation sector. Range anxiety and challenges associated with charging EVs are among the key issues that reduce the adoption rate of EVs and, in turn, limit their system-level impacts. A promising solution to address these challenges is the introduction of charging while driving (CWD) lanes. Although technological advancements have made it possible to charge vehicles wirelessly while driving, introducing such lanes to the traffic stream can potentially disturb traffic flow and result in new congestion patterns. This study puts forward a framework to investigate the effects of CWD lanes on traffic flow, considering %autonomy, speed harmonization, and environmental factors for different market penetration rates (MPRs) of personal and commercial EVs. Different policies have been investigated to suggest the best design for CWD lanes. Results indicate that introducing CWD lanes can decrease overall traffic throughput and increase congestion due to additional lane-changing maneuvers by electric vehicles aiming to utilize the CWD lane. Although higher MPRs of EVs help stabilize traffic flow and reduce the number of shockwaves, speed disruption tends to increase in the CWD lane and propagate to adjacent lanes. Emission analyses show significant reductions (up to 63\%) in pollution levels with increasing MPRs of personal and commercial EVs. Our analysis shows that while CWD lanes can facilitate the adoption of EVs, they can deteriorate traffic efficiency, emphasizing the importance of careful design and policy considerations.

cs.ET

A Quantum Optimization Algorithm for Optimal Electric Vehicle Charging Station Placement for Intercity Trips

Electric vehicles (EVs) play a significant role in enhancing the sustainability of transportation systems. However, their widespread adoption is hindered by inadequate public charging infrastructure, particularly to support long-distance travel. Identifying optimal charging station locations in large transportation networks presents a well-known NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem, as the search space grows exponentially with the number of potential charging station locations. This paper introduces a quantum search-based optimization algorithm designed to enhance the efficiency of solving this NP-hard problem for transportation networks. By leveraging quantum parallelism, amplitude amplification, and quantum phase estimation as a subroutine, the optimal solution is identified with a quadratic improvement in complexity compared to classical exact methods, such as branch and bound. The detailed design and complexity of a resource-efficient quantum circuit are discussed.

quant-ph

Review of coreference resolution in English and Persian

Coreference resolution (CR), identifying expressions referring to the same real-world entity, is a fundamental challenge in natural language processing (NLP). This paper explores the latest advancements in CR, spanning coreference and anaphora resolution. We critically analyze the diverse corpora that have fueled CR research, highlighting their strengths, limitations, and suitability for various tasks. We examine the spectrum of evaluation metrics used to assess CR systems, emphasizing their advantages, disadvantages, and the need for more nuanced, task-specific metrics. Tracing the evolution of CR algorithms, we provide a detailed overview of methodologies, from rule-based approaches to cutting-edge deep learning architectures. We delve into mention-pair, entity-based, cluster-ranking, sequence-to-sequence, and graph neural network models, elucidating their theoretical foundations and performance on benchmark datasets. Recognizing the unique challenges of Persian CR, we dedicate a focused analysis to this under-resourced language. We examine existing Persian CR systems and highlight the emergence of end-to-end neural models leveraging pre-trained language models like ParsBERT. This review is an essential resource for researchers and practitioners, offering a comprehensive overview of the current state-of-the-art in CR, identifying key challenges, and charting a course for future research in this rapidly evolving field.

cs.CL

Bridging the gap between micro-economics and micro-mobility: a two-dimensional risk-based microscopic model of pedestrians' and bicyclists' operational behaviors

Due to the inherent safety concerns associated with traffic movement in unconstrained two-dimensional settings, it is important that pedestrians' and other modes' movements such as bicyclists are modeled as a risk-taking stochastic dynamic process that may lead to errors and thus contacts and collisions. Among the existing models that may capture risk-taking behaviors are: 1) the social force models (through the interplay of the repulsion and the attraction force parameters); 2) and the discrete-choice models (through the rationality or the bounded rationality paradigm while weighing different alternatives). Given that the social force models may not readily capture the contact/collision dynamics through the Newtonian force framework, decision-making theories are hypothesized as a feasible approach to formulate a new model that can account for cognitive and behavioral dimensions such as uncertainty and risk. However, instead of relying on the bounded rationality theory, in this paper, a generalized Prospect Theory based microsimulation model is proposed. The model relies on the micro-economics Prospect Theory paradigm where pedestrians or bicyclists (i.e., micro-mobility users) evaluate their speed and directional alternatives while considering the possibility of colliding with other obstacles/users. A numerical analysis on the main model parameters is presented. The model is then calibrated and validated using two real-world data sets with trajectories recorded in naturalistic settings. With the calibrated parameters studied, simulation exercises and sensitivity analysis are conducted to recreate bottlenecks and lane formations in different conditions. The findings show that the proposed model's parameters reflect the risk-taking tendencies of different roadway users in mixed right-of-way's environments while showing realistic microscopic and macroscopic traffic flow characteristics.

physics.soc-ph

Persian Pronoun Resolution: Leveraging Neural Networks and Language Models

Coreference resolution, critical for identifying textual entities referencing the same entity, faces challenges in pronoun resolution, particularly identifying pronoun antecedents. Existing methods often treat pronoun resolution as a separate task from mention detection, potentially missing valuable information. This study proposes the first end-to-end neural network system for Persian pronoun resolution, leveraging pre-trained Transformer models like ParsBERT. Our system jointly optimizes both mention detection and antecedent linking, achieving a 3.37 F1 score improvement over the previous state-of-the-art system (which relied on rule-based and statistical methods) on the Mehr corpus. This significant improvement demonstrates the effectiveness of combining neural networks with linguistic models, potentially marking a significant advancement in Persian pronoun resolution and paving the way for further research in this under-explored area.

cs.CL

Traffic Shaping and Hysteresis Mitigation Using Deep Reinforcement Learning in a Connected Driving Environment

A multi-agent deep reinforcement learning-based framework for traffic shaping. The proposed framework offers a key advantage over existing congestion management strategies which is the ability to mitigate hysteresis phenomena. Unlike existing congestion management strategies that focus on breakdown prevention, the proposed framework is extremely effective after breakdown formation. The proposed framework assumes partial connectivity between the automated vehicles which share information. The framework requires a basic level of autonomy defined by one-dimensional longitudinal control. This framework is primarily built using a centralized training, centralized execution multi-agent deep reinforcement learning approach, where longitudinal control is defined by signals of acceleration or deceleration commands which are then executed by all agents uniformly. The model undertaken for training and testing of the framework is based on the well-known Double Deep Q-Learning algorithm which takes the average state of flow within the traffic stream as the model input and outputs actions in the form of acceleration or deceleration values. We demonstrate the ability of the model to shape the state of traffic, mitigate the negative effects of hysteresis, and even improve traffic flow beyond its original level. This paper also identifies the minimum percentage of CAVs required to successfully shape the traffic under an assumption of uniformly distributed CAVs within the loop system. The framework illustrated in this work doesnt just show the theoretical applicability of reinforcement learning to tackle such challenges but also proposes a realistic solution that only requires partial connectivity and continuous monitoring of the average speed of the system, which can be achieved using readily available sensors that measure the speeds of vehicles in reasonable proximity to the CAVs.

cs.MA

A hybrid entity-centric approach to Persian pronoun resolution

Pronoun resolution is a challenging subset of an essential field in natural language processing called coreference resolution. Coreference resolution is about finding all entities in the text that refers to the same real-world entity. This paper presents a hybrid model combining multiple rulebased sieves with a machine-learning sieve for pronouns. For this purpose, seven high-precision rule-based sieves are designed for the Persian language. Then, a random forest classifier links pronouns to the previous partial clusters. The presented method demonstrates exemplary performance using pipeline design and combining the advantages of machine learning and rulebased methods. This method has solved some challenges in end-to-end models. In this paper, the authors develop a Persian coreference corpus called Mehr in the form of 400 documents. This corpus fixes some weaknesses of the previous corpora in the Persian language. Finally, the efficiency of the presented system compared to the earlier model in Persian is reported by evaluating the proposed method on the Mehr and Uppsala test sets.

cs.CL

The Neural Correlates of Image Texture in the Human Vision Using Magnetoencephalography

Undoubtedly, textural property of an image is one of the most important features in object recognition task in both human and computer vision applications. Here, we investigated the neural signatures of four well-known statistical texture features including contrast, homogeneity, energy, and correlation computed from the gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) of the images viewed by the participants in the process of magnetoencephalography (MEG) data collection. To trace these features in the human visual system, we used multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) and trained a linear support vector machine (SVM) classifier on every timepoint of MEG data representing the brain activity and compared it with the textural descriptors of images using the Spearman correlation. The result of this study demonstrates that hierarchical structure in the processing of these four texture descriptors in the human brain with the order of contrast, homogeneity, energy, and correlation. Additionally, we found that energy, which carries broad texture property of the images, shows a more sustained statistically meaningful correlation with the brain activity in the course of time.

q-bio.NC

The effect of scene context on weakly supervised semantic segmentation

Image semantic segmentation is parsing image into several partitions in such a way that each region of which involves a semantic concept. In a weakly supervised manner, since only image-level labels are available, discriminating objects from the background is challenging, and in some cases, much more difficult. More specifically, some objects which are commonly seen in one specific scene (e.g. 'train' typically is seen on 'railroad track') are much more likely to be confused. In this paper, we propose a method to add the target-specific scenes in order to overcome the aforementioned problem. Actually, we propose a scene recommender which suggests to add some specific scene contexts to the target dataset in order to train the model more accurately. It is notable that this idea could be a complementary part of the baselines of many other methods. The experiments validate the effectiveness of the proposed method for the objects for which the scene context is added.

cs.CV

Back to the Future: Predicting Traffic Shockwave Formation and Propagation Using a Convolutional Encoder-Decoder Network

This study proposes a deep learning methodology to predict the propagation of traffic shockwaves. The input to the deep neural network is time-space diagram of the study segment, and the output of the network is the predicted (future) propagation of the shockwave on the study segment in the form of time-space diagram. The main feature of the proposed methodology is the ability to extract the features embedded in the time-space diagram to predict the propagation of traffic shockwaves.

cs.LG

A Correlation Based Feature Representation for First-Person Activity Recognition

In this paper, a simple yet efficient activity recognition method for first-person video is introduced. The proposed method is appropriate for representation of high-dimensional features such as those extracted from convolutional neural networks (CNNs). The per-frame (per-segment) extracted features are considered as a set of time series, and inter and intra-time series relations are employed to represent the video descriptors. To find the inter-time relations, the series are grouped and the linear correlation between each pair of groups is calculated. The relations between them can represent the scene dynamics and local motions. The introduced grouping strategy helps to considerably reduce the computational cost. Furthermore, we split the series in temporal direction in order to preserve long term motions and better focus on each local time window. In order to extract the cyclic motion patterns, which can be considered as primary components of various activities, intra-time series correlations are exploited. The representation method results in highly discriminative features which can be linearly classified. The experiments confirm that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on recognizing first-person activities on the two challenging first-person datasets.

cs.CV