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Xianzhong Zhao

Publications and source records attributed to Xianzhong Zhao.

16 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

A Continuum in the Lattice of Semiring Varieties: The Interval $[\mathsf{V}(S), \mathsf{V}(S^0)]$

For an additively idempotent semiring (ai-semiring) $S$, let $S^0$ denote the ai-semiring obtained from $S$ by adjoining a new element $0$. In this paper, we develop an approach to investigate the interval $[\mathsf{V}(S), \mathsf{V}(S^0)]$ of ai-semiring varieties between the variety generated by $S$ and that generated by $S^0$. We establish a general sufficient condition under which this interval has the cardinality of the continuum. This is applied in particular to $[\mathsf{V}(S_7), \mathsf{V}(S_7^0)]$, where $S_7$ is a $3$-element ai-semiring and is a nonfinitely based algebra of the smallest possible order, thereby resolving an open problem proposed by Jackson, Ren, and Zhao (J. Algebra \textbf{611} (2022), 211--245). The same conclusion holds for $[\mathsf{V}(B_2^1), \mathsf{V}((B_2^1)^0)]$, where $B_2^1$ is the ai-semiring whose multiplicative reduct is the $6$-element Brandt semigroup. We also present a sufficient condition for the nonfinite basis property in ai-semiring varieties. As a corollary, we obtain a new proof of Dolinka's theorem (Internat. J. Algebra Comput. \textbf{17} (2007), no.~8, 1537--1551) that the $7$-element ai-semiring $(B_2^1)^0$ has no finite basis for its identities.

math.GR↗
arXiv2026

The finite basis problem for the flat semirings $S(W)$

We focus on the finite basis problem for flat semirings of the form $S(W)$, where $W$ is an arbitrary set of nonempty words. We prove that $S(W)$ generates a Cross variety (and hence is finitely based) whenever every word in $W$ has length at most $3$, whereas it is nonfinitely based whenever there exists $k \geq 3$ such that $W$ is $x^{k+2}$-free but not $x^{k+1}$-free. In particular, if $W_k$ denotes the set of all words of length $k$, then $S(W_k)$ is finitely based if and only if $k \leq 3$. Moreover, $S(W)$ is nonfinitely based whenever $W$ is finite and not $x^4$-free. These results provide a partial answer to an open problem raised by Jackson et al.~(J Algebra 611: 211--245, 2022).

math.CO↗
arXiv2026

WCM: A World Critic Model for Vision-Language-Action Reinforcement Learning

Reinforcement learning (RL) post-training of Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models has shown strong promise for robotic manipulation. Among RL methods, critic-based approaches rely on a value estimator that predominantly operates on single-frame observations or single-frame VLM backbone latents, which is a fundamental mismatch with the partially observable nature of robot control. A naive approach to incorporate observation history into the critic incurs exponential complexity with high-dimensional visual space, and still fails because pure scalar-return regression provides insufficient supervision for learning cross-temporal dynamics. We identify the root cause as a state approximation problem: without an explicit world modeling objective, the critic's representation cannot capture the temporal structure needed for accurate value estimation. To address this, we propose the World Critic Model (WCM), built on a lightweight LeJEPA architecture; WCM jointly predicts future latent state and estimates values, such that the critic's representation is explicitly trained to capture temporal dynamics rather than merely regress scalar returns. WCM integrates seamlessly into both on-policy and off-policy training pipelines and is compatible with state-of-the-art VLA backbones including Pi0, Pi0.5, and OpenVLA-OFT. Extensive experiments on 149 tasks across four benchmarks demonstrate that WCM consistently achieves state-of-the-art performance in both in-distribution and out-of-distribution settings, with particularly strong generalization gains. We further validate WCM on seven real-world manipulation tasks using OpenVLA-OFT and Pi0.5 with off-policy RL, confirming stable deployment across diverse settings.

cs.RO↗
arXiv2026

AECBench: A Hierarchical Benchmark for Knowledge Evaluation of Large Language Models in the AEC Field

Large language models (LLMs), as a novel information technology, are seeing increasing adoption in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) field. They have shown their potential to streamline processes throughout the building lifecycle. However, the robustness and reliability of LLMs in such a specialized and safety-critical domain remain to be evaluated. To address this challenge, this paper establishes AECBench, a comprehensive benchmark designed to quantify the strengths and limitations of current LLMs in the AEC domain. The benchmark features a five-level, cognition-oriented evaluation framework (i.e., Knowledge Memorization, Understanding, Reasoning, Calculation, and Application). Based on the framework, 23 representative evaluation tasks were defined. These tasks were derived from authentic AEC practice, with scope ranging from codes retrieval to specialized documents generation. Subsequently, a 4,800-question dataset encompassing diverse formats, including open-ended questions, was crafted primarily by engineers and validated through a two-round expert review. Furthermore, an "LLM-as-a-Judge" approach was introduced to provide a scalable and consistent methodology for evaluating complex, long-form responses leveraging expert-derived rubrics. Through the evaluation of nine LLMs, a clear performance decline across five cognitive levels was revealed. Despite demonstrating proficiency in foundational tasks at the Knowledge Memorization and Understanding levels, the models showed significant performance deficits, particularly in interpreting knowledge from tables in building codes, executing complex reasoning and calculation, and generating domain-specific documents. Consequently, this study lays the groundwork for future research and development aimed at the robust and reliable integration of LLMs into safety-critical engineering practices.

cs.CL↗
arXiv2025

SRPO: Self-Referential Policy Optimization for Vision-Language-Action Models

Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models excel in robotic manipulation but are constrained by their heavy reliance on expert demonstrations, leading to demonstration bias and limiting performance. Reinforcement learning (RL) is a vital post-training strategy to overcome these limits, yet current VLA-RL methods, including group-based optimization approaches, are crippled by severe reward sparsity. Relying on binary success indicators wastes valuable information in failed trajectories, resulting in low training efficiency. To solve this, we propose Self-Referential Policy Optimization (SRPO), a novel VLA-RL framework. SRPO eliminates the need for external demonstrations or manual reward engineering by leveraging the model's own successful trajectories, generated within the current training batch, as a self-reference. This allows us to assign a progress-wise reward to failed attempts. A core innovation is the use of latent world representations to measure behavioral progress robustly. Instead of relying on raw pixels or requiring domain-specific fine-tuning, we utilize the compressed, transferable encodings from a world model's latent space. These representations naturally capture progress patterns across environments, enabling accurate, generalized trajectory comparison. Empirical evaluations on the LIBERO benchmark demonstrate SRPO's efficiency and effectiveness. Starting from a supervised baseline with 48.9% success, SRPO achieves a new state-of-the-art success rate of 99.2% in just 200 RL steps, representing a 103% relative improvement without any extra supervision. Furthermore, SRPO shows substantial robustness, achieving a 167% performance improvement on the LIBERO-Plus benchmark.

cs.RO↗
arXiv2025

ArchCAD-400K: A Large-Scale CAD drawings Dataset and New Baseline for Panoptic Symbol Spotting

Recognizing symbols in architectural CAD drawings is critical for various advanced engineering applications. In this paper, we propose a novel CAD data annotation engine that leverages intrinsic attributes from systematically archived CAD drawings to automatically generate high-quality annotations, thus significantly reducing manual labeling efforts. Utilizing this engine, we construct ArchCAD-400K, a large-scale CAD dataset consisting of 413,062 chunks from 5538 highly standardized drawings, making it over 26 times larger than the largest existing CAD dataset. ArchCAD-400K boasts an extended drawing diversity and broader categories, offering line-grained annotations. Furthermore, we present a new baseline model for panoptic symbol spotting, termed Dual-Pathway Symbol Spotter (DPSS). It incorporates an adaptive fusion module to enhance primitive features with complementary image features, achieving state-of-the-art performance and enhanced robustness. Extensive experiments validate the effectiveness of DPSS, demonstrating the value of ArchCAD-400K and its potential to drive innovation in architectural design and construction.

cs.CV↗
arXiv2025

Embedding lattices of quasivarieties of periodic groups into lattices of additively idempotent semiring varieties: An algebraic proof

A general result by Jackson (Flat algebras and the translation of universal Horn logic to equational logic, J. Symb. Log. 73(1) (2008) 90--128) implies that the lattice of all quasivarieties of groups of exponent dividing $n$ embeds into the lattice $L(\mathbf{Sr}_n)$ of all varieties of additively idempotent semirings whose multiplicative semigroups are unions of groups of exponent dividing $n$; the image of this embedding is an interval in $L(\mathbf{Sr}_n)$. We provide a new, direct, and purely algebraic proof of these facts and present a new identity basis for the top variety of the interval. In addition, we obtain new information about the lattice $L(\mathbf{Sr}_n)$, demonstrating that the properties of the lattice for $n\ge 3$ differ drastically from those previously known when $n=1$ or $2$.

math.GR↗
arXiv2025

The varieties generated by 3-hypergraph semirings

In this paper the 3-hypergraph semigroups and 3-hypergraph semirings from 3-hypergraphs $\mathbb{H}$ are introduced and the varieties generated by them are studied. It is shown that all 3-hypergraph semirings $S_{\scriptscriptstyle \mathbb{H}}$ are nonfinitely based and subdirectly irreducible. Also, it is proved that each variety generated by 3-hypergraph semirings is equal to a variety generated by 3-uniform hypergraph semirings. It is well known that both variety $\mathbf{V}(S_c(abc))$ (see, J. Algebra 611: 211--245, 2022 and J. Algebra 623: 64--85, 2023) and variety $\mathbf{V}(S_{\scriptscriptstyle \mathbb{H}})$ play key role in the theory of variety of ai-semirings, where 3-uniform hypergraph $\mathbb{H}$ is a 3-cycle. They are shown that each variety generated by 2-robustly strong 3-colorable 3-uniform hypergraph semirings is equal to variety $\mathbf{V}(S_c(abc))$, and each variety generated by so-called beam-type hypergraph semirings or fan-type hypergraph semirings is equal to the variety $\mathbf{V}(S_{\scriptscriptstyle \mathbb{H}})$ generated by a 3-uniform 3-cycle hypergraph semiring $S_{\scriptscriptstyle \mathbb{H}}$. Finally, an infinite ascending chain is provided in the lattice of subvarieties of the variety generated by all 3-uniform hypergraph semirings. This implies that the variety generated by all 3-uniform hypergraph semirings has infinitely many subvarieties.

math.RA↗
arXiv2025

Global determinism of completely regular semigroups

The power semigroup of a semigroup $ S $ is the semigroup of all nonempty subsets of $ S $ equipped with the naturally defined multiplication. A class $\mathcal{K} $ of semigroups is globally determined if any two members of $ \mathcal{K} $ with isomorphic globals are themselves isomorphic. The global determinability for various classes of semigroups has attracted some attention during the past 50 years. In this paper we prove that the class of all completely regular semigroups is globally determined. This is an extension and generalization of a series of related results obtained by some other mathematicians.

math.GR↗
arXiv2025

The finite basis problem for additively idempotent semirings that relate to S_7

The $3$-element additively idempotent semiring $S_7$ is a nonnitely based algebra of the smallest possible order. In this paper we study the nite basis problem for some additively idempotent semirings that relate to $S_7$. We present a su cient condition under which an additively idempotent semiring variety is nonnitely based and as applications, show that some additively idempotent semiring varieties that contain $S_7$ are also nonnitely based. We then consider the subdirectly irreducible members of the variety $\mathsf{V}(S_7)$ generated by $S_7$. We show that $\mathsf{V}(S_7)$ contains exactly $6$ finitely based subvarieties, all of which sit at the base of the subvariety lattice, then invoke results from the homomorphism theory of Kneser graphs to verify that $\mathsf{V}(S_7)$ contains a continuum of subvarieties.

math.GR↗
arXiv2023

The Burnside ai-semiring variety defined by $x^n\approx x$

Let ${\bf Sr}(n, 1)$ denote the ai-semiring variety defined by the identity $x^n\approx x$, where $n>1$. We characterize all subdirectly irreducible members of a semisimple subvariety of ${\bf Sr}(n, 1)$. Based on this result, we prove that ${\bf Sr}(n, 1)$ is hereditarily finitely based (resp., hereditarily finitely generated) if and only if $n<4$ and that the lattice of subvarieties of ${\bf Sr}(n, 1)$ is countable if and only if $n<4$. Also, we show that the class of all locally finite members of ${\bf Sr}(n, 1)$ forms a variety and so we affirmatively answer the restricted Burnside problem for ${\bf Sr}(n, 1)$. In addition, we provide a simplified proof of the main result obtained by Gajdoš and Kuřil (Semigroup Forum 80: 92--104, 2010).

math.GR↗
arXiv2023

Automatic Truss Design with Reinforcement Learning

Truss layout design, namely finding a lightweight truss layout satisfying all the physical constraints, is a fundamental problem in the building industry. Generating the optimal layout is a challenging combinatorial optimization problem, which can be extremely expensive to solve by exhaustive search. Directly applying end-to-end reinforcement learning (RL) methods to truss layout design is infeasible either, since only a tiny portion of the entire layout space is valid under the physical constraints, leading to particularly sparse rewards for RL training. In this paper, we develop AutoTruss, a two-stage framework to efficiently generate both lightweight and valid truss layouts. AutoTruss first adopts Monte Carlo tree search to discover a diverse collection of valid layouts. Then RL is applied to iteratively refine the valid solutions. We conduct experiments and ablation studies in popular truss layout design test cases in both 2D and 3D settings. AutoTruss outperforms the best-reported layouts by 25.1% in the most challenging 3D test cases, resulting in the first effective deep-RL-based approach in the truss layout design literature.

cs.AI↗
arXiv2022

Flat extensions of groups and limit varieties of ai-semirings

The present paper is a continuation of \cite{jrz} and is devoted to the study of limit varieties of additively idempotent semirings. A limit variety is a nonfinitely based variety whose proper subvarieties are all finitely based. We present concrete constructions for one infinite family of limit additively idempotent semiring varieties, and one further ad hoc example. Each of these examples can be generated by a finite flat semiring, with the infinite family arising by a way of a complete characterisation of limit varieties that can be generated by the flat extension of a finite group. We also demonstrate the existence of other examples of limit varieties of additively idempotent semirings, including one further continuum-sized family, each with no finite generator, and two further ad hoc examples. While an explicit description of these latter examples is not given, one of the examples is proved to contain only trivial flat semirings.

math.GR↗
arXiv2021

Nonfinitely based ai-semirings with finitely based semigroup reducts

We present some general results implying nonfinite axiomatisability of many additively idempotent semirings with finitely based semigroup reducts. The smallest is a $3$-element commutative example, which we show also has \texttt{NP}-hard membership for its variety. As well as being the only nonfinite axiomatisable ai-semiring on $3$-elements, we are able to show that its nonfinite basis property infects many related semirings, including the natural ai-semiring structure on the semigroup $B_2^1$. We also extend previous group-theory based examples significantly, by showing that any finite additively idempotent semiring with a nonabelian nilpotent subgroup is not finitely axiomatisable for its identities.

math.LO↗
arXiv2019

Three-dimensional topology optimization of auxetic metamaterial using isogeometric analysis and model order reduction

In this work, we present an efficiently computational approach for designing material micro-structures by means of topology optimization. The central idea relies on using the isogeometric analysis integrated with the parameterized level set function for numerical homogenization, sensitivity calculation and optimization of the effective elastic properties. Design variables, which are level set values associated with control points, are updated from the optimizer and represent the geometry of the unit cell. We further improve the computational efficiency in each iteration by employing reduced order modeling when solving linear systems of the equilibrium equations. We construct a reduced basis by reusing computed solutions from previous optimization steps, and a much smaller linear system of equations is solved on the reduced basis. Two- and three-dimensional numerical results show the effectiveness of the topology optimization algorithm coupled with the reduced basis approach in designing metamaterials.

cs.CE↗