arXiv subjects

Ting Liu

Publications and source records attributed to Ting Liu.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2026

Image Diffusion Preview with Consistency Solver

The slow inference process of image diffusion models significantly degrades interactive user experiences. To address this, we introduce Diffusion Preview, a novel paradigm employing rapid, low-step sampling to generate preliminary outputs for user evaluation, deferring full-step refinement until the preview is deemed satisfactory. Existing acceleration methods, including training-free solvers and post-training distillation, struggle to deliver high-quality previews or ensure consistency between previews and final outputs. We propose ConsistencySolver derived from general linear multistep methods, a lightweight, trainable high-order solver optimized via Reinforcement Learning, that enhances preview quality and consistency. Experimental results demonstrate that ConsistencySolver significantly improves generation quality and consistency in low-step scenarios, making it ideal for efficient preview-and-refine workflows. Notably, it achieves FID scores on-par with Multistep DPM-Solver using 47% fewer steps, while outperforming distillation baselines. Furthermore, user studies indicate our approach reduces overall user interaction time by nearly 50% while maintaining generation quality. Code is available at https://github.com/G-U-N/consolver.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2026

Rethinking Structure Preservation in Text-Guided Image Editing with Visual Autoregressive Models

Visual autoregressive (VAR) models have recently emerged as a promising family of generative models, enabling a wide range of downstream vision tasks such as text-guided image editing. By shifting the editing paradigm from noise manipulation in diffusion-based methods to token-level operations, VAR-based approaches achieve better background preservation and significantly faster inference. However, existing VAR-based editing methods still face two key challenges: accurately localizing editable tokens and maintaining structural consistency in the edited results. In this work, we propose a novel text-guided image editing framework rooted in an analysis of intermediate feature distributions within VAR models. First, we introduce a coarse-to-fine token localization strategy that can refine editable regions, balancing editing fidelity and background preservation. Second, we analyze the intermediate representations of VAR models and identify structure-related features, by which we design a simple yet effective feature injection mechanism to enhance structural consistency between the edited and source images. Third, we develop a reinforcement learning-based adaptive feature injection scheme that automatically learns scale- and layer-specific injection ratios to jointly optimize editing fidelity and structure preservation. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method achieves superior structural consistency and editing quality compared with state-of-the-art approaches, across both local and global editing scenarios.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2026

GeoSketch: A Neural-Symbolic Approach to Geometric Multimodal Reasoning with Auxiliary Line Construction and Affine Transformation

Geometric Problem Solving (GPS) poses a unique challenge for Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs), requiring not only the joint interpretation of text and diagrams but also iterative visuospatial reasoning. While existing approaches process diagrams as static images, they lack the capacity for dynamic manipulation - a core aspect of human geometric reasoning involving auxiliary line construction and affine transformations. We present GeoSketch, a neural-symbolic framework that recasts geometric reasoning as an interactive perception-reasoning-action loop. GeoSketch integrates: (1) a Perception module that abstracts diagrams into structured logic forms, (2) a Symbolic Reasoning module that applies geometric theorems to decide the next deductive step, and (3) a Sketch Action module that executes operations such as drawing auxiliary lines or applying transformations, thereby updating the diagram in a closed loop. To train this agent, we develop a two-stage pipeline: supervised fine-tuning on 2,000 symbolic-curated trajectories followed by reinforcement learning with dense, symbolic rewards to enhance robustness and strategic exploration. To evaluate this paradigm, we introduce the GeoSketch Benchmark, a high-quality set of 390 geometry problems requiring auxiliary construction or affine transformations. Experiments on strong MLLM baselines demonstrate that GeoSketch significantly improves stepwise reasoning accuracy and problem-solving success over static perception methods. By unifying hierarchical decision-making, executable visual actions, and symbolic verification, GeoSketch advances multimodal reasoning from static interpretation to dynamic, verifiable interaction, establishing a new foundation for solving complex visuospatial problems.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2026

SAM-R1: Leveraging SAM for Reward Feedback in Multimodal Segmentation via Reinforcement Learning

Leveraging multimodal large models for image segmentation has become a prominent research direction. However, existing approaches typically rely heavily on manually annotated datasets that include explicit reasoning processes, which are costly and time-consuming to produce. Recent advances suggest that reinforcement learning (RL) can endow large models with reasoning capabilities without requiring such reasoning-annotated data. In this paper, we propose SAM-R1, a novel framework that enables multimodal large models to perform fine-grained reasoning in image understanding tasks. Our approach is the first to incorporate fine-grained segmentation settings during the training of multimodal reasoning models. By integrating task-specific, fine-grained rewards with a tailored optimization objective, we further enhance the model's reasoning and segmentation alignment. We also leverage the Segment Anything Model (SAM) as a strong and flexible reward provider to guide the learning process. With only 3k training samples, SAM-R1 achieves strong performance across multiple benchmarks, demonstrating the effectiveness of reinforcement learning in equipping multimodal models with segmentation-oriented reasoning capabilities.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2026

ConflictBench: Evaluating Human-AI Conflict via Interactive and Visually Grounded Environments

As large language models (LLMs) evolve into autonomous agents capable of acting in open-ended environments, ensuring behavioral alignment with human values becomes a critical safety concern. Existing benchmarks, focused on static, single-turn prompts, fail to capture the interactive and multi-modal nature of real-world conflicts. We introduce ConflictBench, a benchmark for evaluating human-AI conflict through 150 multi-turn scenarios derived from prior alignment queries. ConflictBench integrates a text-based simulation engine with a visually grounded world model, enabling agents to perceive, plan, and act under dynamic conditions. Empirical results show that while agents often act safely when human harm is immediate, they frequently prioritize self-preservation or adopt deceptive strategies in delayed or low-risk settings. A regret test further reveals that aligned decisions are often reversed under escalating pressure, especially with visual input. These findings underscore the need for interaction-level, multi-modal evaluation to surface alignment failures that remain hidden in conventional benchmarks.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2026

AutoTool: Automatic Scaling of Tool-Use Capabilities in RL via Decoupled Entropy Constraints

Tool use represents a critical capability for AI agents, with recent advances focusing on leveraging reinforcement learning (RL) to scale up the explicit reasoning process to achieve better performance. However, there are some key challenges for tool use in current RL-based scaling approaches: (a) direct RL training often struggles to scale up thinking length sufficiently to solve complex problems, and (b) scaled-up models tend to overthink simpler problems, resulting in substantial token inefficiency. To address these challenges, we propose a novel training paradigm that first employs warm-up supervised fine-tuning to help models distinguish between simple and complex problems, followed by RL that enable models to automatically determine appropriate reasoning trajectories. Furthermore, to tackle the issue of automatic thinking-length scaling, we discover that entropy-based optimization objectives effectively maintain model diversity while successfully unlocking the model's scaling capabilities. Based on this insight, we introduce an entropy-based long-short reasoning fusion RL strategy. Our experiments on three benchmarks demonstrate that model successfully achieves auto-scaling for efficient tool use, achieving significant 9.8\% accuracy improvements while reducing computational overhead by \textasciitilde81\%.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2026

The Tool-Overuse Illusion: Why Does LLM Prefer External Tools over Internal Knowledge?

Equipping LLMs with external tools effectively addresses internal reasoning limitations. However, it introduces a critical yet under-explored phenomenon: tool overuse, the unnecessary tool-use during reasoning. In this paper, we first reveal this phenomenon is pervasive across diverse LLMs. We then experimentally elucidate its underlying mechanisms through two key lenses: (1) First, by analyzing tool-use behavior across different internal knowledge availability regions, we identify a \textit{knowledge epistemic illusion}: models misjudge internal knowledge boundaries and fail to accurately perceive their actual knowledge availability. To mitigate this, we propose a knowledge-aware epistemic boundary alignment strategy based on direct preference optimization, which reduces tool usage in by 82.8\% while yielding an accuracy improvement. (2) Second, we establish a causal link between reward structures and tool-use behavior by visualizing the tool-augmented training process. It reveals that \textit{outcome-only rewards} inadvertently encourage tool overuse by rewarding only final correctness, regardless of tool efficiency. To verify this, we balance reward signals during training rather than relying on outcome-only rewards, cutting unnecessary tool calls by 66.7\% (7B) and 60.7\% (32B) without sacrificing accuracy. Finally, we provide theoretical justification in this two lenses to understand tool overuse.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2026

ReLayout: Versatile and Structure-Preserving Design Layout Editing via Relation-Aware Design Reconstruction

Automated redesign without manual adjustments marks a key step forward in the design workflow. In this work, we focus on a foundational redesign task termed design layout editing, which seeks to autonomously modify the geometric composition of a design based on user intents. To overcome the ambiguity of user needs expressed in natural language, we introduce four basic and important editing actions and standardize the format of editing operations. The underexplored task presents a unique challenge: satisfying specified editing operations while simultaneously preserving the layout structure of unedited elements. Besides, the scarcity of triplet (original design, editing operation, edited design) samples poses another formidable challenge. To this end, we present ReLayout, a novel framework for versatile and structure-preserving design layout editing that operates without triplet data. Specifically, ReLayout first introduces the relation graph, which contains the position and size relationships among unedited elements, as the constraint for layout structure preservation. Then, relation-aware design reconstruction (RADR) is proposed to bypass the data challenge. By learning to reconstruct a design from its elements, a relation graph, and a synthesized editing operation, RADR effectively emulates the editing process in a self-supervised manner. A multi-modal large language model serves as the backbone for RADR, unifying multiple editing actions within a single model and thus achieving versatile editing after fine-tuning. Qualitative, quantitative results and user studies show that ReLayout significantly outperforms the baseline models in terms of editing quality, accuracy, and layout structure preservation.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2026

Orchestrating Intelligence: Confidence-Aware Routing for Efficient Multi-Agent Collaboration across Multi-Scale Models

While multi-agent systems (MAS) have demonstrated superior performance over single-agent approaches in complex reasoning tasks, they often suffer from significant computational inefficiencies. Existing frameworks typically deploy large language models (LLMs) uniformly across all agent roles, failing to account for the varying cognitive demands of different reasoning stages. We address this inefficiency by proposing OI-MAS framework, a novel multi-agent framework that implements an adaptive model-selection policy across a heterogeneous pool of multi-scale LLMs. Specifically, OI-MAS introduces a state-dependent routing mechanism that dynamically selects agent roles and model scales throughout the reasoning process. In addition, we introduce a confidence-aware mechanism that selects appropriate model scales conditioned on task complexity, thus reducing unnecessary reliance on large-scale models. Experimental results show that OI-MAS consistently outperforms baseline multi-agent systems, improving accuracy by up to 12.88\% while reducing cost by up to 79.78\%.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2026

Precision over Diversity: High-Precision Reward Generalizes to Robust Instruction Following

A central belief in scaling reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards for instruction following (IF) tasks is that, a diverse mixture of verifiable hard and unverifiable soft constraints is essential for generalizing to unseen instructions. In this work, we challenge this prevailing consensus through a systematic empirical investigation. Counter-intuitively, we find that models trained on hard-only constraints consistently outperform those trained on mixed datasets. Extensive experiments reveal that reward precision, rather than constraint diversity, is the primary driver of effective alignment. The LLM judge suffers from a low recall rate in detecting false response, which leads to severe reward hacking, thereby undermining the benefits of diversity. Furthermore, analysis of the attention mechanism reveals that high-precision rewards develop a transferable meta-skill for IF. Motivated by these insights, we propose a simple yet effective data-centric refinement strategy that prioritizes reward precision. Evaluated on five benchmarks, our approach outperforms competitive baselines by 13.4\% in performance while achieving a 58\% reduction in training time, maintaining strong generalization beyond instruction following. Our findings advocate for a paradigm shift: moving away from the indiscriminate pursuit of data diversity toward high-precision rewards.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2026

OnlineMate: An LLM-Based Multi-Agent Companion System for Cognitive Support in Online Learning

In online learning environments, students often lack personalized peer interactions, which are crucial for cognitive development and learning engagement. Although previous studies have employed large language models (LLMs) to simulate interactive learning environments, these interactions are limited to conversational exchanges, failing to adapt to learners' individualized cognitive and psychological states. As a result, students' engagement is low and they struggle to gain inspiration. To address this challenge, we propose OnlineMate, a multi-agent learning companion system driven by LLMs integrated with Theory of Mind (ToM). OnlineMate simulates peer-like roles, infers learners' psychological states such as misunderstandings and confusion during collaborative discussions, and dynamically adjusts interaction strategies to support higher-order thinking. Comprehensive evaluations, including simulation-based experiments, human assessments, and real classroom trials, demonstrate that OnlineMate significantly promotes deep learning and cognitive engagement by elevating students' average cognitive level while substantially improving emotional engagement scores.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2026

On Exact Editing of Flow-Based Diffusion Models

Recent methods in flow-based diffusion editing have enabled direct transformations between source and target image distribution without explicit inversion. However, the latent trajectories in these methods often exhibit accumulated velocity errors, leading to semantic inconsistency and loss of structural fidelity. We propose Conditioned Velocity Correction (CVC), a principled framework that reformulates flow-based editing as a distribution transformation problem driven by a known source prior. CVC rethinks the role of velocity in inter-distribution transformation by introducing a dual-perspective velocity conversion mechanism. This mechanism explicitly decomposes the latent evolution into two components: a structure-preserving branch that remains consistent with the source trajectory, and a semantically-guided branch that drives a controlled deviation toward the target distribution. The conditional velocity field exhibits an absolute velocity error relative to the true underlying distribution trajectory, which inherently introduces potential instability and trajectory drift in the latent space. To address this quantifiable deviation and maintain fidelity to the true flow, we apply a posterior-consistent update to the resulting conditional velocity field. This update is derived from Empirical Bayes Inference and Tweedie correction, which ensures a mathematically grounded error compensation over time. Our method yields stable and interpretable latent dynamics, achieving faithful reconstruction alongside smooth local semantic conversion. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate that CVC consistently achieves superior fidelity, better semantic alignment, and more reliable editing behavior across diverse tasks.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2025

Sparse-Tuning: Adapting Vision Transformers with Efficient Fine-tuning and Inference

Parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT) has emerged as a popular solution for adapting pre-trained Vision Transformer (ViT) models to downstream applications by updating only a small subset of parameters. While current PEFT methods have achieved fine-tuning efficiency, they overlook the efficiency of computation and GPU memory during inference, falling short of practical requirements. To address this limitation, we propose Sparse-Tuning, an efficient and effective framework that leverages popular token sparsification (TS) techniques to reduce information redundancy in images and videos, thereby significantly improving computational and memory efficiency. However, TS often compromises performance due to inevitable information loss. To address this limitation, we further introduce Dense Adapters (DA) to compensate for the information losses incurred by token sparsification. DA integrates comprehensive token information from shallow layers into the retained tokens of deeper layers, ensuring minimal performance degradation. Through the integration of TS techniques and DA, Sparse-Tuning achieves a significant reduction in computation and memory overhead while maintaining performance. Empirical results on VTAB-1K, three image datasets, and two video datasets show that Sparse-Tuning reduces GFLOPs to 66\% of the original ViT-B while achieving state-of-the-art performance compared to full fine-tuning and other PEFT baselines.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2025

Huayu: Advanced Real-Time Precipitation Estimation from Geostationary Satellite

As climate change drives increased frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation and flooding worldwide, posing escalating threats to public safety and economic assets, accurate and real-time satellite-based precipitation estimation is essential for operational large-scale hydrometeorological analysis and disaster monitoring. NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG Final Run) combines information from "all" satellite microwave observations with gauge correction and climatological adjustment to produce precipitation estimates at 0.1° spatial and 30-min temporal resolution. However, its latency of approximately 3.5 months restricts its utility for real-time applications, despite outperforming mainstream satellite precipitation datasets in representing rainfall patterns and variability. We present Huayu, a novel machine learning-based real-time satellite precipitation retrieval system that relies solely on infrared observations from the FengYun-4B geostationary satellite to provide a more accurate precipitation estimate at a finer spatiotemporal resolution (15 min, 0.05°) over a 120° by 120° domain. Performance evaluations demonstrate that Huayu achieves strong consistency with rain gauge observations, yielding a critical success index (CSI) of 0.693 - representing a 3.43% improvement over IMERG Final Run (CSI: 0.670). Experimental results confirm that infrared satellite observations can deliver more accurate precipitation estimates than conventional multi-source algorithms.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2025

Uncovering the Role of Initial Saliency in U-Shaped Attention Bias: Scaling Initial Token Weight for Enhanced Long-Text Processing

Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated strong performance on a variety of natural language processing (NLP) tasks. However, they often struggle with long-text sequences due to the ``lost in the middle'' phenomenon. This issue has been shown to arise from a U-shaped attention bias, where attention is disproportionately focused on the beginning and end of a text, leaving the middle section underrepresented. While previous studies have attributed this bias to position encoding, our research first identifies an additional factor: initial saliency. It means that in the attention computation for each token, tokens with higher attention weights relative to the initial token tend to receive more attention in the prediction of the next token. We further find that utilizing this property by scaling attention weight between the initial token and others improves the model's ability to process long contexts, achieving a maximum improvement of 3.6\% in MDQA dataset. Moreover, combining this approach with existing methods to reduce position encoding bias further enhances performance, achieving a maximum improvement of 3.4\% in KV-Retrieval tasks.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2025

When Less Language is More: Language-Reasoning Disentanglement Makes LLMs Better Multilingual Reasoners

Multilingual reasoning remains a significant challenge for large language models (LLMs), with performance disproportionately favoring high-resource languages. Drawing inspiration from cognitive neuroscience, which suggests that human reasoning functions largely independently of language processing, we hypothesize that LLMs similarly encode reasoning and language as separable components that can be disentangled to enhance multilingual reasoning. To evaluate this, we perform a causal intervention by ablating language-specific representations at inference time. Experiments on 10 open-weight LLMs spanning 11 typologically diverse languages show that this language-specific ablation consistently boosts multilingual reasoning performance. Layer-wise analyses further confirm that language and reasoning representations can be effectively disentangled throughout the model, yielding improved multilingual reasoning capabilities, while preserving top-layer language features remains essential for maintaining linguistic fidelity. Compared to post-training methods such as supervised fine-tuning or reinforcement learning, our training-free language-reasoning disentanglement achieves comparable or superior results with minimal computational overhead. These findings shed light on the internal mechanisms underlying multilingual reasoning in LLMs and suggest a lightweight and interpretable strategy for improving cross-lingual generalization.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2025

Teaching Language Models to Evolve with Users: Dynamic Profile Modeling for Personalized Alignment

Personalized alignment is essential for enabling large language models (LLMs) to engage effectively in user-centric dialogue. While recent prompt-based and offline optimization methods offer preliminary solutions, they fall short in cold-start scenarios and long-term personalization due to their inherently static and shallow designs. In this work, we introduce the Reinforcement Learning for Personalized Alignment (RLPA) framework, in which an LLM interacts with a simulated user model to iteratively infer and refine user profiles through dialogue. The training process is guided by a dual-level reward structure: the Profile Reward encourages accurate construction of user representations, while the Response Reward incentivizes generation of responses consistent with the inferred profile. We instantiate RLPA by fine-tuning Qwen-2.5-3B-Instruct, resulting in Qwen-RLPA, which achieves state-of-the-art performance in personalized dialogue. Empirical evaluations demonstrate that Qwen-RLPA consistently outperforms prompting and offline fine-tuning baselines, and even surpasses advanced commercial models such as Claude-3.5 and GPT-4o. Further analysis highlights Qwen-RLPA's robustness in reconciling conflicting user preferences, sustaining long-term personalization and delivering more efficient inference compared to recent reasoning-focused LLMs. These results emphasize the potential of dynamic profile inference as a more effective paradigm for building personalized dialogue systems.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2025

Towards an Oracle for Binary Decomposition Under Compilation Variance

Third-Party Library (TPL) detection, which identifies reused libraries in binary code, is critical for software security analysis. At its core, TPL detection depends on binary decomposition-the process of partitioning a monolithic binary into cohesive modules. Existing decomposition methods, whether anchor-based or clustering-based, fundamentally rely on the assumption that reused code exhibits similar function call relationships. However, this assumption is severely undermined by Function Call Graph (FCG) variations introduced by diverse compilation settings, particularly function inlining decisions that drastically alter FCG structures. In this work, we conduct the first systematic empirical study to establish the oracle for optimal binary decomposition under compilation variance. We first develop a labeling method to create precise FCG mappings on a comprehensive dataset compiled with 17 compilers, 6 optimizations, and 4 architectures; then, we identify the minimum semantic-equivalent function regions between FCG variants to derive the ground-truth decomposition. This oracle provides the first rigorous evaluation framework that quantitatively assesses decomposition algorithms under compilation variance. Using this oracle, we evaluate existing methods and expose their critical limitations: they either suffer from under-aggregation failure or over-aggregation failure. Our findings reveal that current decomposition techniques are inadequate for robust TPL detection, highlighting the urgent need for compilation-aware approaches.

cs.SE↗