UrbanCraft: Urban View Extrapolation via Hierarchical Sem-Geometric Priors

Existing neural rendering-based urban scene reconstruction methods mainly focus on the Interpolated View Synthesis (IVS) setting that synthesizes from views close to training camera trajectory. However, IVS can not guarantee the on-par performance of the novel view outside the training camera distribution (\textit{e.g.}, looking left, right, or downwards), which limits the generalizability of the urban reconstruction application. Previous methods have optimized it via image diffusion, but they fail to handle text-ambiguous or large unseen view angles due to coarse-grained control of text-only diffusion. In this paper, we design UrbanCraft, which surmounts the Extrapolated View Synthesis (EVS) problem using hierarchical sem-geometric representations serving as additional priors. Specifically, we leverage the partially observable scene to reconstruct coarse semantic and geometric primitives, establishing a coarse scene-level prior through an occupancy grid as the base representation. Additionally, we incorporate fine instance-level priors from 3D bounding boxes to enhance object-level details and spatial relationships. Building on this, we propose the \textbf{H}ierarchical \textbf{S}emantic-Geometric-\textbf{G}uided Variational Score Distillation (HSG-VSD), which integrates semantic and geometric constraints from pretrained UrbanCraft2D into the score distillation sampling process, forcing the distribution to be consistent with the observable scene. Qualitative and quantitative comparisons demonstrate the effectiveness of our methods on EVS problem.

The Staircase of Ethics: Probing LLM Value Priorities through Multi-Step Induction to Complex Moral Dilemmas

Ethical decision-making is a critical aspect of human judgment, and the growing use of LLMs in decision-support systems necessitates a rigorous evaluation of their moral reasoning capabilities. However, existing assessments primarily rely on single-step evaluations, failing to capture how models adapt to evolving ethical challenges. Addressing this gap, we introduce the Multi-step Moral Dilemmas (MMDs), the first dataset specifically constructed to evaluate the evolving moral judgments of LLMs across 3,302 five-stage dilemmas. This framework enables a fine-grained, dynamic analysis of how LLMs adjust their moral reasoning across escalating dilemmas. Our evaluation of nine widely used LLMs reveals that their value preferences shift significantly as dilemmas progress, indicating that models recalibrate moral judgments based on scenario complexity. Furthermore, pairwise value comparisons demonstrate that while LLMs often prioritize the value of care, this value can sometimes be superseded by fairness in certain contexts, highlighting the dynamic and context-dependent nature of LLM ethical reasoning. Our findings call for a shift toward dynamic, context-aware evaluation paradigms, paving the way for more human-aligned and value-sensitive development of LLMs.

A Real-time Non-contact Localization Method for Faulty Electric Energy Storage Components using Highly Sensitive Magnetometers

With the wide application of electric energy storage component arrays, such as battery arrays, capacitor arrays, inductor arrays, their potential safety risks have gradually drawn the public attention. However, existing technologies cannot meet the needs of non-contact and real-time diagnosis for faulty components inside these massive arrays. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a new method based on the beamforming spatial filtering algorithm to precisely locate the faulty components within the arrays in real-time. The method uses highly sensitive magnetometers to collect the magnetic signals from energy storage component arrays, without damaging or even contacting any component. The experimental results demonstrate the potential of the proposed method in securing energy storage component arrays. Within an imaging area of 80 mm $\times$ 80 mm, the one faulty component out of nine total components can be localized with an accuracy of 0.72 mm for capacitor arrays and 1.60 mm for battery arrays.