BAPFL: Exploring Backdoor Attacks Against Prototype-based Federated Learning

Prototype-based federated learning (PFL) has emerged as a promising paradigm to address data heterogeneity problems in federated learning, as it leverages mean feature vectors as prototypes to enhance model generalization. However, its robustness against backdoor attacks remains largely unexplored. In this paper, we identify that PFL is inherently resistant to existing backdoor attacks due to its unique prototype learning mechanism and local data heterogeneity. To further explore the security of PFL, we propose BAPFL, the first backdoor attack method specifically designed for PFL frameworks. BAPFL integrates a prototype poisoning strategy with a trigger optimization mechanism. The prototype poisoning strategy manipulates the trajectories of global prototypes to mislead the prototype training of benign clients, pushing their local prototypes of clean samples away from the prototypes of trigger-embedded samples. Meanwhile, the trigger optimization mechanism learns a unique and stealthy trigger for each potential target label, and guides the prototypes of trigger-embedded samples to align closely with the global prototype of the target label. Experimental results across multiple datasets and PFL variants demonstrate that BAPFL achieves a 35\%-75\% improvement in attack success rate compared to traditional backdoor attacks, while preserving main task accuracy. These results highlight the effectiveness, stealthiness, and adaptability of BAPFL in PFL.

Weakly and Self-Supervised Class-Agnostic Motion Prediction for Autonomous Driving

Understanding motion in dynamic environments is critical for autonomous driving, thereby motivating research on class-agnostic motion prediction. In this work, we investigate weakly and self-supervised class-agnostic motion prediction from LiDAR point clouds. Outdoor scenes typically consist of mobile foregrounds and static backgrounds, allowing motion understanding to be associated with scene parsing. Based on this observation, we propose a novel weakly supervised paradigm that replaces motion annotations with fully or partially annotated (1%, 0.1%) foreground/background masks for supervision. To this end, we develop a weakly supervised approach utilizing foreground/background cues to guide the self-supervised learning of motion prediction models. Since foreground motion generally occurs in non-ground regions, non-ground/ground masks can serve as an alternative to foreground/background masks, further reducing annotation effort. Leveraging non-ground/ground cues, we propose two additional approaches: a weakly supervised method requiring fewer (0.01%) foreground/background annotations, and a self-supervised method without annotations. Furthermore, we design a Robust Consistency-aware Chamfer Distance loss that incorporates multi-frame information and robust penalty functions to suppress outliers in self-supervised learning. Experiments show that our weakly and self-supervised models outperform existing self-supervised counterparts, and our weakly supervised models even rival some supervised ones. This demonstrates that our approaches effectively balance annotation effort and performance.

The Choice of Divergence: A Neglected Key to Mitigating Diversity Collapse in Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Reward

A central paradox in fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) with Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Reward (RLVR) is the frequent degradation of multi-attempt performance (Pass@k) despite improvements in single-attempt accuracy (Pass@1). This is often accompanied by catastrophic forgetting, where models lose previously acquired skills. While various methods have been proposed, the choice and function of the divergence term have been surprisingly unexamined as a proactive solution. We argue that standard RLVR objectives -- both those using the mode-seeking reverse KL-divergence and those forgoing a divergence term entirely -- lack a crucial mechanism for knowledge retention. The reverse-KL actively accelerates this decay by narrowing the policy, while its absence provides no safeguard against the model drifting from its diverse knowledge base. We propose a fundamental shift in perspective: using the divergence term itself as the solution. Our framework, Diversity-Preserving Hybrid RL (DPH-RL), leverages mass-covering f-divergences (like forward-KL and JS-divergence) to function as a rehearsal mechanism. By continuously referencing the initial policy, this approach forces the model to maintain broad solution coverage. Extensive experiments on math and SQL generation demonstrate that DPH-RL not only resolves the Pass@k degradation but improves both Pass@1 and Pass@k in- and out-of-domain. Additionally, DPH-RL is more training-efficient because it computes f-divergence using generator functions, requiring only sampling from the initial policy and no online reference model. Our work highlights a crucial, overlooked axis for improving RLVR, demonstrating that the proper selection of a divergence measure is a powerful tool for building more general and diverse reasoning models.

P/D-Device: Disaggregated Large Language Model between Cloud and Devices

Serving disaggregated large language models has been widely adopted in industrial practice for enhanced performance. However, too many tokens generated in decoding phase, i.e., occupying the resources for a long time, essentially hamper the cloud from achieving a higher throughput. Meanwhile, due to limited on-device resources, the time to first token (TTFT), i.e., the latency of prefill phase, increases dramatically with the growth on prompt length. In order to concur with such a bottleneck on resources, i.e., long occupation in cloud and limited on-device computing capacity, we propose to separate large language model between cloud and devices. That is, the cloud helps a portion of the content for each device, only in its prefill phase. Specifically, after receiving the first token from the cloud, decoupling with its own prefill, the device responds to the user immediately for a lower TTFT. Then, the following tokens from cloud are presented via a speed controller for smoothed TPOT (the time per output token), until the device catches up with the progress. On-device prefill is then amortized using received tokens while the resource usage in cloud is controlled. Moreover, during cloud prefill, the prompt can be refined, using those intermediate data already generated, to further speed up on-device inference. We implement such a scheme P/D-Device, and confirm its superiority over other alternatives. We further propose an algorithm to decide the best settings. Real-trace experiments show that TTFT decreases at least 60%, maximum TPOT is about tens of milliseconds, and cloud throughput increases by up to 15x.

MamV2XCalib: V2X-based Target-less Infrastructure Camera Calibration with State Space Model

As cooperative systems that leverage roadside cameras to assist autonomous vehicle perception become increasingly widespread, large-scale precise calibration of infrastructure cameras has become a critical issue. Traditional manual calibration methods are often time-consuming, labor-intensive, and may require road closures. This paper proposes MamV2XCalib, the first V2X-based infrastructure camera calibration method with the assistance of vehicle-side LiDAR. MamV2XCalib only requires autonomous vehicles equipped with LiDAR to drive near the cameras to be calibrated in the infrastructure, without the need for specific reference objects or manual intervention. We also introduce a new targetless LiDAR-camera calibration method, which combines multi-scale features and a 4D correlation volume to estimate the correlation between vehicle-side point clouds and roadside images. We model the temporal information and estimate the rotation angles with Mamba, effectively addressing calibration failures in V2X scenarios caused by defects in the vehicle-side data (such as occlusions) and large differences in viewpoint. We evaluate MamV2XCalib on the V2X-Seq and TUMTraf-V2X real-world datasets, demonstrating the effectiveness and robustness of our V2X-based automatic calibration approach. Compared to previous LiDAR-camera methods designed for calibration on one car, our approach achieves better and more stable calibration performance in V2X scenarios with fewer parameters. The code is available at https://github.com/zhuyaoye/MamV2XCalib.

ComplexBench-Edit: Benchmarking Complex Instruction-Driven Image Editing via Compositional Dependencies

Text-driven image editing has achieved remarkable success in following single instructions. However, real-world scenarios often involve complex, multi-step instructions, particularly ``chain'' instructions where operations are interdependent. Current models struggle with these intricate directives, and existing benchmarks inadequately evaluate such capabilities. Specifically, they often overlook multi-instruction and chain-instruction complexities, and common consistency metrics are flawed. To address this, we introduce ComplexBench-Edit, a novel benchmark designed to systematically assess model performance on complex, multi-instruction, and chain-dependent image editing tasks. ComplexBench-Edit also features a new vision consistency evaluation method that accurately assesses non-modified regions by excluding edited areas. Furthermore, we propose a simple yet powerful Chain-of-Thought (CoT)-based approach that significantly enhances the ability of existing models to follow complex instructions. Our extensive experiments demonstrate ComplexBench-Edit's efficacy in differentiating model capabilities and highlight the superior performance of our CoT-based method in handling complex edits. The data and code are released at https://github.com/llllly26/ComplexBench-Edit.

Flexible MIMO for Future Wireless Communications: Which Flexibilities are Possible?

To enable next-generation wireless communication networks with modest spectrum availability, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology needs to undergo further evolution. In this paper, we introduce a promising next-generation wireless communication concept: flexible MIMO technology. This technology represents a MIMO technology with flexible physical configurations and integrated applications. We categorize twelve representative flexible MIMO technologies into three major classifications: flexible deployment characteristics-based, flexible geometry characteristics-based, and flexible real-time modifications-based. Then, we provide a comprehensive overview of their fundamental characteristics, potential, and challenges. Furthermore, we demonstrate three vital enablers for the flexible MIMO technology, including efficient channel state information (CSI) acquisition schemes, low-complexity beamforming design, and explainable artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled optimization. Within these areas, eight critical sub-enabling technologies are discussed in detail. Finally, we present two case studies-pre-optimized irregular arrays and cell-free movable antennas-where significant potential for flexible MIMO technologies to enhance the system capacity is showcased.

Attention-Enhanced Prompt Decision Transformers for UAV-Assisted Communications with AoI

Decision Transformer (DT) has recently demonstrated strong generalizability in dynamic resource allocation within unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) networks, compared to conventional deep reinforcement learning (DRL). However, its performance is hindered due to zero-padding for varying state dimensions, inability to manage long-term energy constraint, and challenges in acquiring expert samples for few-shot fine-tuning in new scenarios. To overcome these limitations, we propose an attention-enhanced prompt Decision Transformer (APDT) framework to optimize trajectory planning and user scheduling, aiming to minimize the average age of information (AoI) under long-term energy constraint in UAV-assisted Internet of Things (IoT) networks. Specifically, we enhance the convenional DT framework by incorporating an attention mechanism to accommodate varying numbers of terrestrial users, introducing a prompt mechanism based on short trajectory demonstrations for rapid adaptation to new scenarios, and designing a token-assisted method to address the UAV's long-term energy constraint. The APDT framework is first pre-trained on offline datasets and then efficiently generalized to new scenarios. Simulations demonstrate that APDT achieves twice faster in terms of convergence rate and reduces average AoI by $8\%$ compared to conventional DT.

DSOcc: Leveraging Depth Awareness and Semantic Aid to Boost Camera-Based 3D Semantic Occupancy Prediction

Camera-based 3D semantic occupancy prediction offers an efficient and cost-effective solution for perceiving surrounding scenes in autonomous driving. However, existing works rely on explicit occupancy state inference, leading to numerous incorrect feature assignments, and insufficient samples restrict the learning of occupancy class inference. To address these challenges, we propose leveraging Depth awareness and Semantic aid to boost camera-based 3D semantic Occupancy prediction (DSOcc). We jointly perform occupancy state and occupancy class inference, where soft occupancy confidence is calculated through non-learning method and multiplied with image features to make the voxel representation aware of depth, enabling adaptive implicit occupancy state inference. Rather than focusing on improving feature learning, we directly utilize well-trained image semantic segmentation and fuse multiple frames with their occupancy probabilities to aid occupancy class inference, thereby enhancing robustness. Experimental results demonstrate that DSOcc achieves state-of-the-art performance on the SemanticKITTI dataset among camera-based methods.

PathBench: A comprehensive comparison benchmark for pathology foundation models towards precision oncology

The emergence of pathology foundation models has revolutionized computational histopathology, enabling highly accurate, generalized whole-slide image analysis for improved cancer diagnosis, and prognosis assessment. While these models show remarkable potential across cancer diagnostics and prognostics, their clinical translation faces critical challenges including variability in optimal model across cancer types, potential data leakage in evaluation, and lack of standardized benchmarks. Without rigorous, unbiased evaluation, even the most advanced PFMs risk remaining confined to research settings, delaying their life-saving applications. Existing benchmarking efforts remain limited by narrow cancer-type focus, potential pretraining data overlaps, or incomplete task coverage. We present PathBench, the first comprehensive benchmark addressing these gaps through: multi-center in-hourse datasets spanning common cancers with rigorous leakage prevention, evaluation across the full clinical spectrum from diagnosis to prognosis, and an automated leaderboard system for continuous model assessment. Our framework incorporates large-scale data, enabling objective comparison of PFMs while reflecting real-world clinical complexity. All evaluation data comes from private medical providers, with strict exclusion of any pretraining usage to avoid data leakage risks. We have collected 15,888 WSIs from 8,549 patients across 10 hospitals, encompassing over 64 diagnosis and prognosis tasks. Currently, our evaluation of 19 PFMs shows that Virchow2 and H-Optimus-1 are the most effective models overall. This work provides researchers with a robust platform for model development and offers clinicians actionable insights into PFM performance across diverse clinical scenarios, ultimately accelerating the translation of these transformative technologies into routine pathology practice.