Utsunomiya University, Japan
Abstract:Search-augmented LLMs increasingly mediate everyday consumer recommendations by retrieving live web content. This creates a new risk: generative recommenders may consume polluted web content, such as fake reviews and promotional pages crafted to mislead recommendations. We ask: to what extent do search-augmented LLMs become unwitting promoters of fake products when consuming polluted retrieval results? To answer this, we introduce FORGE (Fake Online Recommendations in Generative Environments), a benchmark for measuring fake-product promotion under controlled web-content pollution. Given an upstream search result, FORGE locally rewrites real products in retrieved web pages into fake ones to simulate web-content pollution, and measures how often the LLM recommends the fake product. FORGE covers 225 real-world products across 15 categories and 5 consumer scenarios. Across 12 commercial and open-weights LLMs, all models are vulnerable: a single polluted page yields fooled rates of up to 27%, while the full top-3 replacement raises this to 73.8%. Vulnerability varies substantially across categories, increasing when models lack stable prior knowledge of the relevant products. Reasoning does not mitigate this vulnerability; instead, it often generates spurious social proof to justify false recommendations. We evaluate three defenses: skepticism prompting and consensus filtering (over model priors or cross-document evidence). Skepticism can exacerbate vulnerability, much like reasoning, while filtering risks suppressing legitimate products. We release FORGE at https://github.com/leoluolol/forge-benchmark.
Abstract:Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has become indispensable for target interpretation owing to its all-day and all-weather observation capability. In SAR target interpretation, electromagnetic scattering information provides a physically grounded cue beyond visual texture and has been widely exploited for target interpretation. However, existing methods remain dominated by local scattering center representations. Such unordered and component-agnostic representations are highly unstable for aircraft targets. As a result, physically existing components with weak scattering responses are often missed, resulting in the incomplete reconstructed topology structure. To address this limitation, we establish Semantic Scattering Structure Understanding as a new paradigm for SAR aircraft interpretation. Semantic scattering keypoints are defined to associate local electromagnetic responses with physically meaningful aircraft components, while visibility-aware attributes are introduced to retain weakly observable yet physically existed components. The keypoints are further organized into a stable semantic scattering structure. Build upon this, we propose S3U-SAR, a physics-driven framework to localize semantic scattering keypoints and construct the complete representation constrained by multi-dimensional physical priors containing scattering heterogeneity, rigid-body topology, speckle uncertainty. A confidence-gated joint supervision strategy is further introduced to alleviate optimization conflicts. We construct KP-SAR-Aircraft-1.0, the first fine-grained benchmark for semantic scattering structure understanding. Extensive experiments demonstrate that S3U-SAR achieves the best performance compared with baselines. Cross-category and cross-dataset evaluations further verify its robustness and transferability.
Abstract:Scientific images function as critical evidence in research communication, yet their integrity faces unprecedented threats from AI-generated content that introduces subtle but consequential errors. Existing evaluation paradigms prove inadequate: perceptual quality metrics poorly correlate with scientific validity, while language models lack domain-specific verification capabilities. To address this gap, we propose the \textbf{S}cientific \textbf{I}mage \textbf{U}tility and \textbf{U}pgradability \textbf{A}ssessment (\textbf{SIU$^2$A}) framework, which introduces two complementary dimensions for scientific image evaluation. \textbf{Utility} encompasses \textit{error detection} (identifying scientific inaccuracies) and \textit{correction feasibility} (assessing whether errors can be reliably repaired). \textbf{Upgradability} measures the quality of correction. We categorize scientific image corruption into four fundamental types: Detail Distortion, Incompleteness, False Content, and Entity Confusion. Based on this taxonomy, we construct SIU$^2$A-Benchmark, a dataset with expert annotations for error identification and repair. The framework implements a two-stage evaluation protocol: the \textit{Utility} stage evaluates error detection capability and repair instruction generation, while the \textit{Upgradability} stage assesses whether corrections faithfully restore scientific validity without compromising existing accurate information. Experiments reveal that current multimodal systems exhibit significant limitations in both scientific error assessment and faithful correction, exposing a fundamental gap between visual perception and scientific usability.
Abstract:Scientific figures are among the most effective means of communicating complex research ideas, yet producing publication-quality illustrations remains one of the most labor-intensive parts of paper preparation. Existing automated systems each target a single figure type under text-only input, leaving the diversity of types and conditions researchers actually use unaddressed; their raster outputs further cannot be locally revised. Because scientific figures are structured compositions of discrete semantic components, the localized errors generators produce on such layouts demand not a stronger backbone but a harness. We instantiate this harness in two complementary systems: Crafter, a multi-agent harness for figure generation that generalizes across figure types and input conditions without architectural changes, and CraftEditor, which applies the same pattern to convert raster outputs into editable SVGs. Moreover, we introduce CraftBench, a benchmark spanning three figure types and four input conditions with human quality annotation. Experiments show that Crafter substantially outperforms both standalone generators and the agentic baseline on PaperBanana-Bench and CraftBench, with ablations confirming each component's independent contribution; CraftEditor faithfully converts outputs into editable SVGs that surpass all baselines. Our code and benchmark are available at https://github.com/HaozheZhao/Crafter.
Abstract:State space models (SSMs) have emerged as a powerful paradigm for efficient single-image super-resolution (SR) due to their linear complexity and long-range modeling capabilities. However, existing Mamba-based methods typically rely on data-agnostic rigid scanning, which reshapes 2D images into 1D sequences over a fixed grid, inevitably disrupting spatial-semantic topology and introducing artifacts. Inspired by the \textbf{Gestalt perceptual grouping theory}, we propose \textbf{SP-MoMamba}, a superpixel-driven mixture of state space experts designed for content-aware SR. Our core idea is to transform the traditional rigid scanning into a \textbf{semantic-level interaction} by treating superpixels as fundamental units. Specifically, we introduce the \textbf{Superpixel-driven State Space Model (SP-SSM)}, which compresses semantically homogeneous regions into high-order tokens to preserve global topological consistency. To address the conflict between fixed scanning scales and diverse semantic granularities, we develop the \textbf{Multi-Scale Superpixel Mixture of State Space Experts (MSS-MoE)}. This module utilizes a dynamic routing mechanism to adaptively assign scale-specific experts, effectively capturing multi-scale textures while reducing computational redundancy. Furthermore, to prevent the loss of high-frequency details during global abstraction, we introduce a \textbf{Local Spatial Modulation Expert (LSME)} to complement the global modeling, ensuring a precise reconstruction of sharp edges and fine structures. Extensive experiments on standard benchmarks demonstrate that SP-MoMamba achieves superior reconstruction fidelity and a more favorable efficiency-performance trade-off compared to state-of-the-art efficient SR methods.
Abstract:Coding agents are increasingly used as iterative development partners, but most benchmarks still evaluate one specification followed by one final assessment. This leaves out a basic question: can an agent keep its own codebase working as requirements change? We introduce EvoCode-Bench, a benchmark of 26 stateful coding tasks and 227 evaluated rounds. Each task preserves the agent's workspace for 5-15 rounds, states requirements through observable behavior, and uses cumulative executable tests to check new requirements and still-active prior ones. We evaluate 13 coding agents with two metrics: MT@4, a four-attempt fail-stop multi-round score, and SR, a single-round score from a reference-completed prior state. For most agents, SR exceeds MT@4 by 22-40 points. The gap also changes rankings: the highest-SR agent (78.9) ranks only third in persistent execution (44.0 MT@4). Even the strongest agents achieve only about 50% success on multi-turn metrics, and aggregate pass rate drops below half of round-1 performance by round 5. Failure analysis shows tier-dependent behavior: weaker agents fail early, while stronger agents survive long enough to expose specification-tracking and regression failures. We release the benchmark data and Harbor multi-turn infrastructure.
Abstract:Multiphysics simulation is critical for system-technology co-optimization (STCO) in chiplet-based design, but repeated finite-element solutions of PDE-governed problems are computationally expensive in parametric design exploration. This paper proposes a variational matrix-learning Fourier network (VMLFN) for efficient parametric multiphysics surrogate modeling. VMLFN constructs a log-space sine neural representation with randomly sampled spectral frequencies, frequency-dependent decay regulation, and embedded Dirichlet boundary conditions. With fixed hidden-layer parameters, the output-layer weights are determined by reformulating the governing PDEs into variational weak forms and enforcing the stationarity condition of the resulting energy functional. This converts physics-informed training into a linear matrix-solving problem, requiring only first-order derivatives and avoiding both high-order automatic differentiation and penalty-coefficient tuning. A heuristic frequency-scanning algorithm is further introduced to select a problem-adaptive maximum frequency that covers the dominant spectral range of the target problem. The proposed method is validated on heat conduction, solid mechanics, and Helmholtz wave propagation problems. Results from five benchmark cases demonstrate that VMLFN delivers accurate full-field predictions with substantial speedup over conventional physics-informed neural networks and repeated finite-element simulations.
Abstract:Non-invasive electrophysiology lacks methods that accurately reconstruct whole-brain spatiotemporal dynamics while incorporating individual cortical geometry, leaving current electroencephalography and magnetoencephalography source imaging limited by simplistic or biologically implausible priors. Here, we show that embedding participant-specific Geometric Basis Functions (GBFs), eigenmodes derived from each individual's cortical surface, provides a powerful anatomic constraint that resolves the inverse problem and improves reconstruction fidelity. The method reconstructs neural sources as linear combinations of geometric basis functions, thereby aligning source estimates with the geometric organization of neural dynamics. We validate GBF across the Meta-Source Benchmark, task-evoked data, resting-state networks, intracranial stimulation, and epilepsy data. The results demonstrate that GBF yields high localization accuracy and captures fast spatiotemporal dynamics consistent with anatomical pathways. These findings suggest that both spontaneous and evoked whole-brain activity can be described by hundreds of geometric modes, providing a compact yet accurate representation of neural sources. By linking cortical geometry to electrophysiological dynamics, GBF offers a versatile source imaging tool for both scientific and clinical applications.
Abstract:AI agents may be able to automate your inbox, but can they automate other routine aspects of your life? Everyday online tasks offer a realistic yet unsolved testbed for evaluating the next generation of AI agents. To this end, we introduce ClawBench, an evaluation framework of 153 simple tasks that people need to accomplish regularly in their lives and work, spanning 144 live platforms across 15 categories, from completing purchases and booking appointments to submitting job applications. These tasks require demanding capabilities beyond existing benchmarks, such as obtaining relevant information from user-provided documents, navigating multi-step workflows across diverse platforms, and write-heavy operations like filling in many detailed forms correctly. Unlike existing benchmarks that evaluate agents in offline sandboxes with static pages, ClawBench operates on production websites, preserving the full complexity, dynamic nature, and challenges of real-world web interaction. A lightweight interception layer captures and blocks only the final submission request, ensuring safe evaluation without real-world side effects. Our evaluations of 7 frontier models show that both proprietary and open-source models can complete only a small portion of these tasks. For example, Claude Sonnet 4.6 achieves only 33.3%. Progress on ClawBench brings us closer to AI agents that can function as reliable general-purpose assistants.
Abstract:Speech production and perception are the main ways humans communicate daily. Prior brain-to-text decoding studies have largely focused on a single modality and alphabetic languages. Here, we present a unified brain-to-sentence decoding framework for both speech production and perception in Mandarin Chinese. The framework exhibits strong generalization ability, enabling sentence-level decoding when trained only on single-character data and supporting characters and syllables unseen during training. In addition, it allows direct and controlled comparison of neural dynamics across modalities. Mandarin speech is decoded by first classifying syllable components in Hanyu Pinyin, namely initials and finals, from neural signals, followed by a post-trained large language model (LLM) that maps sequences of toneless Pinyin syllables to Chinese sentences. To enhance LLM decoding, we designed a three-stage post-training and two-stage inference framework based on a 7-billion-parameter LLM, achieving overall performance that exceeds larger commercial LLMs with hundreds of billions of parameters or more. In addition, several characteristics were observed in Mandarin speech production and perception: speech production involved neural responses across broader cortical regions than auditory perception; channels responsive to both modalities exhibited similar activity patterns, with speech perception showing a temporal delay relative to production; and decoding performance was broadly comparable across hemispheres. Our work not only establishes the feasibility of a unified decoding framework but also provides insights into the neural characteristics of Mandarin speech production and perception. These advances contribute to brain-to-text decoding in logosyllabic languages and pave the way toward neural language decoding systems supporting multiple modalities.