Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Zhiyuan Wang

Publications and source records attributed to Zhiyuan Wang.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

MAPS: Multi-Agent Personality Shaping for Collaborative Reasoning

Collaborative reasoning with multiple agents offers the potential for more robust and diverse problem-solving. However, existing approaches often suffer from homogeneous agent behaviors and lack of reflective and rethinking capabilities. We propose Multi-Agent Personality Shaping (MAPS), a novel framework that enhances reasoning through agent diversity and internal critique. Inspired by the Big Five personality theory, MAPS assigns distinct personality traits to individual agents, shaping their reasoning styles and promoting heterogeneous collaboration. To enable deeper and more adaptive reasoning, MAPS introduces a Critic agent that reflects on intermediate outputs, revisits flawed steps, and guides iterative refinement. This integration of personality-driven agent design and structured collaboration improves both reasoning depth and flexibility. Empirical evaluations across three benchmarks demonstrate the strong performance of MAPS, with further analysis confirming its generalizability across different large language models and validating the benefits of multi-agent collaboration.

cs.AI↗

Parastatistics and a secret communication challenge

One of the most unconventional features of topological phases of matter is the emergence of quasiparticles with exotic statistics, such as non-Abelian anyons in two dimensional systems. Recently, a different type of exotic particle statistics that is consistently defined in any dimension, called $R$-parastatistics, is also shown to be possible in a special family of topological phases. However, the physical significance of emergent parastatistics still remains elusive. Here we demonstrate a distinctive physical consequence of parastatistics by proposing a challenge game that can only be won using physical systems hosting paraparticles, as passing the challenge requires the two participating players to secretly communicate in an indirect way by exploiting the nontrivial exchange statistics of the quasiparticles. The winning strategy using emergent paraparticles is robust against noise, as well as the most relevant class of eavesdropping via local measurements. This provides both an operational definition and an experimental identity test for paraparticles, alongside a potential application in secret communication.

quant-ph↗

Secret communication games and a hierarchy of quasiparticle statistics in 3 + 1D topological phases

We show that a family of secret communication challenge games naturally define a hierarchy of emergent quasiparticle statistics in three-dimensional (3D) topological phases. The winning strategies exploit a special class of the recently proposed $R$-paraparticles to allow nonlocal secret communication between the two participating players. We first give a high-level, axiomatic description of emergent $R$-paraparticles, and show that any physical system hosting such particles admits a winning strategy. We then analyze the games using the categorical description of topological phases (where point-like excitations in 3D are described by symmetric fusion categories), and show that only $R$-paraparticles can win the 3D challenge in a noise-robust way, and the winning strategy is essentially unique. This analysis associates emergent $R$-paraparticles to deconfined gauge theories based on an exotic class of finite groups. Thus, even though this special class of $R$-paraparticles are fermions or bosons under the categorical classification, their exchange statistics can still have nontrivial physical consequences in the presence of appropriate defects, and the $R$-paraparticle language offers a more convenient description of the winning strategies. Finally, while a subclass of non-Abelian anyons can win the game in 2D, we introduce twisted variants that exclude anyons, thereby singling out $R$-paraparticles in 2D as well. Our results establish the secret communication challenge as a versatile diagnostic for both identifying and classifying exotic exchange statistics in topological quantum matter.

quant-ph↗

Conformal Lesion Segmentation for 3D Medical Images

Medical image segmentation serves as a critical component of precision medicine, enabling accurate localization and delineation of pathological regions, such as lesions. However, existing models empirically apply fixed thresholds (e.g., 0.5) to differentiate lesions from the background, offering no statistical guarantees on key metrics such as the false negative rate (FNR). This lack of principled risk control undermines their reliable deployment in high-stakes clinical applications, especially in challenging scenarios like 3D lesion segmentation (3D-LS). To address this issue, we propose a risk-constrained framework, termed Conformal Lesion Segmentation (CLS), that calibrates data-driven thresholds via conformalization to ensure the test-time FNR remains below a target tolerance $\varepsilon$ under desired risk levels. CLS begins by holding out a calibration set to analyze the threshold setting for each sample under the FNR tolerance, drawing on the idea of conformal prediction. We define an FNR-specific loss function and identify the critical threshold at which each calibration data point just satisfies the target tolerance. Given a user-specified risk level $α$, we then determine the approximate $1-α$ quantile of all the critical thresholds in the calibration set as the test-time confidence threshold. By conformalizing such critical thresholds, CLS generalizes the statistical regularities observed in the calibration set to new test data, providing rigorous FNR constraint while yielding more precise and reliable segmentations. We validate the statistical soundness and predictive performance of CLS on six 3D-LS datasets across five backbone models, and conclude with actionable insights for deploying risk-aware segmentation in clinical practice.

eess.IV↗

A novel viewpoint for Bayesian inversion based on the Poisson point process

We present a novel Bayesian framework for inverse problems in which the pos terior distribution is interpreted as the intensity measure of a Poisson point process (PPP). The posterior density is approximated using kernel density estimation, and the superposition property of PPPs is then exploited to enable efficient sampling from each kernel component. This methodology offers a new means of exploring the posterior distribution and facilitates the generation of independent and identically distributed samples, thereby enhancing the analysis of inverse problem solutions.

math.NA↗

Data-Augmented Few-Shot Neural Emulator for Computer-Model System Identification

Partial differential equations (PDEs) underpin the modeling of many natural and engineered systems. It can be convenient to express such models as neural PDEs rather than using traditional numerical PDE solvers by replacing part or all of the PDE's governing equations with a neural network representation. Neural PDEs are often easier to differentiate, linearize, reduce, or use for uncertainty quantification than the original numerical solver. They are usually trained on solution trajectories obtained by long-horizon rollout of the PDE solver. Here we propose a more sample-efficient data-augmentation strategy for generating neural PDE training data from a computer model by space-filling sampling of local "stencil" states. This approach removes a large degree of spatiotemporal redundancy present in trajectory data and oversamples states that may be rarely visited but help the neural PDE generalize across the state space. We demonstrate that accurate neural PDE stencil operators can be learned from synthetic training data generated by the computational equivalent of 10 timesteps' worth of numerical simulation. Accuracy is further improved if we assume access to a single full-trajectory simulation from the computer model, which is typically available in practice. Across several PDE systems, we show that our data-augmented stencil data yield better trained neural stencil operators, with clear performance gains compared with naively sampled stencil data from simulation trajectories. Finally, with only 10 solver steps' worth of augmented stencil data, our approach outperforms traditional ML emulators trained on thousands of trajectories in long-horizon rollout accuracy and stability.

cs.LG↗

WatchAnxiety: A Transfer Learning Approach for State Anxiety Prediction from Smartwatch Data

Social anxiety is a common mental health condition linked to significant challenges in academic, social, and occupational functioning. A core feature is elevated momentary (state) anxiety in social situations, yet little prior work has measured or predicted fluctuations in this anxiety throughout the day. Capturing these intra-day dynamics is critical for designing real-time, personalized interventions such as Just-In-Time Adaptive Interventions (JITAIs). To address this gap, we conducted a study with socially anxious college students (N=91; 72 after exclusions) using our custom smartwatch-based system over an average of 9.03 days (SD = 2.95). Participants received seven ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) per day to report state anxiety. We developed a base model on over 10,000 days of external heart rate data, transferred its representations to our dataset, and fine-tuned it to generate probabilistic predictions. These were combined with trait-level measures in a meta-learner. Our pipeline achieved 60.4% balanced accuracy in state anxiety detection in our dataset. To evaluate generalizability, we applied the training approach to a separate hold-out set from the TILES-18 dataset-the same dataset used for pretraining. On 10,095 once-daily EMAs, our method achieved 59.1% balanced accuracy, outperforming prior work by at least 7%.

cs.LG↗

From Perception to Protection: A Developer-Centered Study of Security and Privacy Threats in Extended Reality (XR)

The immersive nature of XR introduces a fundamentally different set of security and privacy (S&P) challenges due to the unprecedented user interactions and data collection that traditional paradigms struggle to mitigate. As the primary architects of XR applications, developers play a critical role in addressing novel threats. However, to effectively support developers, we must first understand how they perceive and respond to different threats. Despite the growing importance of this issue, there is a lack of in-depth, threat-aware studies that examine XR S&P from the developers' perspective. To fill this gap, we interviewed 23 professional XR developers with a focus on emerging threats in XR. Our study addresses two research questions aiming to uncover existing problems in XR development and identify actionable paths forward. By examining developers' perceptions of S&P threats, we found that: (1) XR development decisions (e.g., rich sensor data collection, user-generated content interfaces) are closely tied to and can amplify S&P threats, yet developers are often unaware of these risks, resulting in cognitive biases in threat perception; and (2) limitations in existing mitigation methods, combined with insufficient strategic, technical, and communication support, undermine developers' motivation, awareness, and ability to effectively address these threats. Based on these findings, we propose actionable and stakeholder-aware recommendations to improve XR S&P throughout the XR development process. This work represents the first effort to undertake a threat-aware, developer-centered study in the XR domain -- an area where the immersive, data-rich nature of the XR technology introduces distinctive challenges.

cs.CR↗

Chapter 8 Multi-Criteria Decision-Making: Aggregation-Type Methods

This chapter describes selected aggregation-type multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods that convert an alternatives-criteria matrix (ACM) into a single performance score per alternative through additive, multiplicative or hybrid manipulations, for ranking the alternatives. The 8 methods are: Simple Additive Weighting (SAW), Multiplicative Exponent Weighting (MEW), Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Analytic Network Process (ANP), Complex Proportional Assessment (COPRAS), Multi-Objective Optimization on the basis of Ratio Analysis (MOORA), Faire Un Choix Adequat (FUCA) and Weighted Aggregated Sum Product Assessment (WASPAS). This chapter details the algorithm of each method step-by-step, illustrating every procedure with a common ACM example and full numerical calculations. Practical strengths and weaknesses of every method are outlined. A consolidated summary shows how different methods can lead to variations in the final rankings. This chapter enables the readers to: (1) explain the principles and algorithms of aggregation-type methods covered, (2) implement them on an ACM, and (3) select one or more suitable aggregation-type MCDM methods for their applications.

math.OC↗

A persistent-homology-based Bayesian prior for potential coefficient reconstruction in an elliptic PDE

We address the reconstruction of a potential coefficient in an elliptic partial differential equation from distributed observations within the Bayesian framework. The choice of prior distribution is crucial in such inverse problems, particularly when the target function exhibits sharp discontinuities that conventional Gaussian priors fail to capture effectively. To overcome this limitation, we introduce a novel prior based on persistent homology (PH), which quantifies and encodes the topological features of candidate functions through their persistent pairs. To ensure a well-defined distribution in infinite-dimensional spaces, the prior is constructed with respect to a Gaussian reference measure. A significant advantage over classical approaches is that the PH prior only requires the unknown functions to belong to a suitable topological space, which substantially enhances its applicability. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed PH prior outperforms the Gaussian prior and achieves a modest yet consistent improvement over the classical total variation (TV) prior.

math.NA↗

P2DT: Mitigating Forgetting in task-incremental Learning with progressive prompt Decision Transformer

Catastrophic forgetting poses a substantial challenge for managing intelligent agents controlled by a large model, causing performance degradation when these agents face new tasks. In our work, we propose a novel solution - the Progressive Prompt Decision Transformer (P2DT). This method enhances a transformer-based model by dynamically appending decision tokens during new task training, thus fostering task-specific policies. Our approach mitigates forgetting in continual and offline reinforcement learning scenarios. Moreover, P2DT leverages trajectories collected via traditional reinforcement learning from all tasks and generates new task-specific tokens during training, thereby retaining knowledge from previous studies. Preliminary results demonstrate that our model effectively alleviates catastrophic forgetting and scales well with increasing task environments.

cs.LG↗

INCPrompt: Task-Aware incremental Prompting for Rehearsal-Free Class-incremental Learning

This paper introduces INCPrompt, an innovative continual learning solution that effectively addresses catastrophic forgetting. INCPrompt's key innovation lies in its use of adaptive key-learner and task-aware prompts that capture task-relevant information. This unique combination encapsulates general knowledge across tasks and encodes task-specific knowledge. Our comprehensive evaluation across multiple continual learning benchmarks demonstrates INCPrompt's superiority over existing algorithms, showing its effectiveness in mitigating catastrophic forgetting while maintaining high performance. These results highlight the significant impact of task-aware incremental prompting on continual learning performance.

cs.LG↗

ChordPrompt: Orchestrating Cross-Modal Prompt Synergy for Multi-Domain Incremental Learning in CLIP

Continual learning (CL) empowers pre-trained vision-language models to adapt effectively to novel or previously underrepresented data distributions without comprehensive retraining, enhancing their adaptability and efficiency. While vision-language models like CLIP show great promise, they struggle to maintain performance across domains in incremental learning scenarios. Existing prompt learning methods face two main limitations: 1) they primarily focus on class-incremental learning scenarios, lacking specific strategies for multi-domain task incremental learning; 2) most current approaches employ single-modal prompts, neglecting the potential benefits of cross-modal information exchange. To address these challenges, we propose the \ChordPrompt framework, which facilitates a harmonious interplay between visual and textual prompts. \ChordPrompt introduces cross-modal prompts to leverage interactions between visual and textual information. Our approach also employs domain-adaptive text prompts to select appropriate prompts for continual adaptation across multiple domains. Comprehensive experiments on multi-domain incremental learning benchmarks demonstrate that \ChordPrompt outperforms state-of-the-art methods in zero-shot generalization and downstream task performance.

cs.AI↗

ORMind: A Cognitive-Inspired End-to-End Reasoning Framework for Operations Research

Operations research (OR) is widely deployed to solve critical decision-making problems with complex objectives and constraints, impacting manufacturing, logistics, finance, and healthcare outcomes. While Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown promising results in various domains, their practical application in industry-relevant operations research (OR) problems presents significant challenges and opportunities. Preliminary industrial applications of LLMs for operations research face two critical deployment challenges: 1) Self-correction focuses on code syntax rather than mathematical accuracy, causing costly errors; 2) Complex expert selection creates unpredictable workflows that reduce transparency and increase maintenance costs, making them impractical for time-sensitive business applications. To address these business limitations, we introduce ORMind, a cognitive-inspired framework that enhances optimization through counterfactual reasoning. Our approach emulates human cognition, implementing an end-to-end workflow that systematically transforms requirements into mathematical models and executable solver code. It is currently being tested internally in Lenovo's AI Assistant, with plans to enhance optimization capabilities for both business and consumer customers. Experiments demonstrate that ORMind outperforms existing methods, achieving a 9.5\% improvement on the NL4Opt dataset and a 14.6\% improvement on the ComplexOR dataset.

cs.AI↗

Chapter 7 Multi-Criteria Decision-Making: Reference-Type Methods

This chapter describes selected reference-type multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods that rank alternatives by comparing them with one or more reference solutions derived from an alternatives-criteria matrix (ACM). After explaining the idea of constructing positive ideal, negative ideal and/or average reference solutions, the chapter details the algorithmic steps of each method, illustrating them with a common ACM example. The 9 methods covered are: Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), Gray/Grey Relational Analysis (GRA), VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR), Evaluation Based on Distance from Average Solution (EDAS), Multi-attributive Border Approximation Area Comparison (MABAC), Combinative Distance-based Assessment (CODAS), Proximity Indexed Value (PIV), Measurement of Alternatives and Ranking According to Compromise Solution (MARCOS) and Preference Ranking on the Basis of Ideal-average Distance (PROBID). The advantages (e.g., computational simplicity) and limitations (e.g., susceptibility to rank reversal) of each method are discussed. A consolidated summary highlights how the different treatments of reference solutions can ultimately drive variations in the ranking of alternatives, underscoring the value of applying several methods in practice. By studying this chapter, readers can (1) describe the principles and steps of each reference-type method, (2) implement them on an ACM, and (3) choose an appropriate reference-type method for their decision-making problems.

math.OC↗

Cascaded Large-Scale TSP Solving with Unified Neural Guidance: Bridging Local and Population-based Search

The traveling salesman problem (TSP) is a fundamental NP-hard optimization problem. Over the past decades, traditional heuristic methods have achieved substantial success in solving TSP, yet their performance, particularly for large-scale instances, remains to be further improved. The advancement of deep learning technologies over the past decade has driven a growing number of attempts to solve TSP by leveraging neural guidance. However, these efforts predominantly focus on small-scale TSP instances, with limited improvements in solving performance for large-scale instances, revealing persistent scalability challenges. This work presents UNiCS, a novel unified neural-guided cascaded solver for solving large-scale TSP instances. UNiCS comprises a local search (LS) phase and a population-based search (PBS) phase, both guided by a learning component called unified neural guidance (UNG). Specifically, UNG guides solution generation across both phases and determines appropriate phase transition timing to effectively combine the complementary strengths of LS and PBS. While trained only on simple distributions with relatively small-scale TSP instances, UNiCS generalizes effectively to challenging TSP benchmarks containing much larger instances (10,000-71,009 nodes) with diverse node distributions entirely unseen during training. Experimental results on the large-scale TSP instances demonstrate that UNiCS consistently outperforms state-of-the-art methods, with its advantage remaining consistent across various runtime budgets.

cs.NE↗

Sub-5-fs compression and synchronization of relativistic electron bunches enabled by a high-gradient $α$-magnet and low-jitter photoinjector

Generating high-brightness relativistic electron bunches with few-femtosecond duration, while simultaneously achieving few-fs synchronization with ultrafast lasers, remains an outstanding challenge at the frontier of accelerator physics and ultrafast science. In this Letter, we present the beam physics and experimental demonstration of a new method that, for the first time, enables simultaneous control of bunch duration and synchronization with few-fs precision. Timing stabilization is achieved using a tailored high-gradient $α$-magnet that optimizes the correlation between time of flight and momentum, together with a photocathode RF gun designed to suppress the effect of RF-to-laser timing jitter. Compression is realized by manipulating the time-momentum correlation in phase space, primarily through space-charge effects. Sub-5-fs rms bunch duration and synchronization are demonstrated. This method establishes a new regime in electron bunch control, unlocking new capabilities for ultrafast beam physics and applications.

physics.acc-ph↗

Machine Learning-Assisted Surrogate Modeling with Multi-Objective Optimization and Decision-Making of a Steam Methane Reforming Reactor

This study presents an integrated modeling and optimization framework for a steam methane reforming (SMR) reactor, combining a mathematical model, artificial neural network (ANN)-based hybrid modeling, advanced multi-objective optimization (MOO) and multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques. A one-dimensional fixed-bed reactor model accounting for internal mass transfer resistance was employed to simulate reactor performance. To reduce the high computational cost of the mathematical model, a hybrid ANN surrogate was constructed, achieving a 93.8% reduction in average simulation time while maintaining high predictive accuracy. The hybrid model was then embedded into three MOO scenarios using the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) solver: 1) maximizing methane conversion and hydrogen output; 2) maximizing hydrogen output while minimizing carbon dioxide emissions; and 3) a combined three-objective case. The optimal trade-off solutions were further ranked and selected using two MCDM methods: technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and simplified preference ranking on the basis of ideal-average distance (sPROBID). Optimal results include a methane conversion of 0.863 with 4.556 mol/s hydrogen output in the first case, and 0.988 methane conversion with 3.335 mol/s hydrogen and 0.781 mol/s carbon dioxide in the third. This comprehensive methodology offers a scalable and effective strategy for optimizing complex catalytic reactor systems with multiple, often conflicting, objectives.

physics.chem-ph↗