A Layered Self-Supervised Knowledge Distillation Framework for Efficient Multimodal Learning on the Edge

We introduce Layered Self-Supervised Knowledge Distillation (LSSKD) framework for training compact deep learning models. Unlike traditional methods that rely on pre-trained teacher networks, our approach appends auxiliary classifiers to intermediate feature maps, generating diverse self-supervised knowledge and enabling one-to-one transfer across different network stages. Our method achieves an average improvement of 4.54\% over the state-of-the-art PS-KD method and a 1.14% gain over SSKD on CIFAR-100, with a 0.32% improvement on ImageNet compared to HASSKD. Experiments on Tiny ImageNet and CIFAR-100 under few-shot learning scenarios also achieve state-of-the-art results. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in enhancing model generalization and performance without the need for large over-parameterized teacher networks. Importantly, at the inference stage, all auxiliary classifiers can be removed, yielding no extra computational cost. This makes our model suitable for deploying small language models on affordable low-computing devices. Owing to its lightweight design and adaptability, our framework is particularly suitable for multimodal sensing and cyber-physical environments that require efficient and responsive inference. LSSKD facilitates the development of intelligent agents capable of learning from limited sensory data under weak supervision.

SatelliteFormula: Multi-Modal Symbolic Regression from Remote Sensing Imagery for Physics Discovery

We propose SatelliteFormula, a novel symbolic regression framework that derives physically interpretable expressions directly from multi-spectral remote sensing imagery. Unlike traditional empirical indices or black-box learning models, SatelliteFormula combines a Vision Transformer-based encoder for spatial-spectral feature extraction with physics-guided constraints to ensure consistency and interpretability. Existing symbolic regression methods struggle with the high-dimensional complexity of multi-spectral data; our method addresses this by integrating transformer representations into a symbolic optimizer that balances accuracy and physical plausibility. Extensive experiments on benchmark datasets and remote sensing tasks demonstrate superior performance, stability, and generalization compared to state-of-the-art baselines. SatelliteFormula enables interpretable modeling of complex environmental variables, bridging the gap between data-driven learning and physical understanding.

When Cloud Removal Meets Diffusion Model in Remote Sensing

Cloud occlusion significantly hinders remote sensing applications by obstructing surface information and complicating analysis. To address this, we propose DC4CR (Diffusion Control for Cloud Removal), a novel multimodal diffusion-based framework for cloud removal in remote sensing imagery. Our method introduces prompt-driven control, allowing selective removal of thin and thick clouds without relying on pre-generated cloud masks, thereby enhancing preprocessing efficiency and model adaptability. Additionally, we integrate low-rank adaptation for computational efficiency, subject-driven generation for improved generalization, and grouped learning to enhance performance on small datasets. Designed as a plug-and-play module, DC4CR seamlessly integrates into existing cloud removal models, providing a scalable and robust solution. Extensive experiments on the RICE and CUHK-CR datasets demonstrate state-of-the-art performance, achieving superior cloud removal across diverse conditions. This work presents a practical and efficient approach for remote sensing image processing with broad real-world applications.

Point-Driven Interactive Text and Image Layer Editing Using Diffusion Models

We present DanceText, a training-free framework for multilingual text editing in images, designed to support complex geometric transformations and achieve seamless foreground-background integration. While diffusion-based generative models have shown promise in text-guided image synthesis, they often lack controllability and fail to preserve layout consistency under non-trivial manipulations such as rotation, translation, scaling, and warping. To address these limitations, DanceText introduces a layered editing strategy that separates text from the background, allowing geometric transformations to be performed in a modular and controllable manner. A depth-aware module is further proposed to align appearance and perspective between the transformed text and the reconstructed background, enhancing photorealism and spatial consistency. Importantly, DanceText adopts a fully training-free design by integrating pretrained modules, allowing flexible deployment without task-specific fine-tuning. Extensive experiments on the AnyWord-3M benchmark demonstrate that our method achieves superior performance in visual quality, especially under large-scale and complex transformation scenarios.

SatelliteCalculator: A Multi-Task Vision Foundation Model for Quantitative Remote Sensing Inversion

Quantitative remote sensing inversion plays a critical role in environmental monitoring, enabling the estimation of key ecological variables such as vegetation indices, canopy structure, and carbon stock. Although vision foundation models have achieved remarkable progress in classification and segmentation tasks, their application to physically interpretable regression remains largely unexplored. Furthermore, the multi-spectral nature and geospatial heterogeneity of remote sensing data pose significant challenges for generalization and transferability. To address these issues, we introduce SatelliteCalculator, the first vision foundation model tailored for quantitative remote sensing inversion. By leveraging physically defined index formulas, we automatically construct a large-scale dataset of over one million paired samples across eight core ecological indicators. The model integrates a frozen Swin Transformer backbone with a prompt-guided architecture, featuring cross-attentive adapters and lightweight task-specific MLP decoders. Experiments on the Open-Canopy benchmark demonstrate that SatelliteCalculator achieves competitive accuracy across all tasks while significantly reducing inference cost. Our results validate the feasibility of applying foundation models to quantitative inversion, and provide a scalable framework for task-adaptive remote sensing estimation.

Prompt-Driven and Training-Free Forgetting Approach and Dataset for Large Language Models

The widespread adoption of diffusion models in image generation has increased the demand for privacy-compliant unlearning. However, due to the high-dimensional nature and complex feature representations of diffusion models, achieving selective unlearning remains challenging, as existing methods struggle to remove sensitive information while preserving the consistency of non-sensitive regions. To address this, we propose an Automatic Dataset Creation Framework based on prompt-based layered editing and training-free local feature removal, constructing the ForgetMe dataset and introducing the Entangled evaluation metric. The Entangled metric quantifies unlearning effectiveness by assessing the similarity and consistency between the target and background regions and supports both paired (Entangled-D) and unpaired (Entangled-S) image data, enabling unsupervised evaluation. The ForgetMe dataset encompasses a diverse set of real and synthetic scenarios, including CUB-200-2011 (Birds), Stanford-Dogs, ImageNet, and a synthetic cat dataset. We apply LoRA fine-tuning on Stable Diffusion to achieve selective unlearning on this dataset and validate the effectiveness of both the ForgetMe dataset and the Entangled metric, establishing them as benchmarks for selective unlearning. Our work provides a scalable and adaptable solution for advancing privacy-preserving generative AI.

A Diffusion-Based Framework for Terrain-Aware Remote Sensing Image Reconstruction

Remote sensing imagery is essential for environmental monitoring, agricultural management, and disaster response. However, data loss due to cloud cover, sensor failures, or incomplete acquisition-especially in high-resolution and high-frequency tasks-severely limits satellite imagery's effectiveness. Traditional interpolation methods struggle with large missing areas and complex structures. Remote sensing imagery consists of multiple bands, each with distinct meanings, and ensuring consistency across bands is critical to avoid anomalies in the combined images. This paper proposes SatelliteMaker, a diffusion-based method that reconstructs missing data across varying levels of data loss while maintaining spatial, spectral, and temporal consistency. We also propose Digital Elevation Model (DEM) as a conditioning input and use tailored prompts to generate realistic images, making diffusion models applicable to quantitative remote sensing tasks. Additionally, we propose a VGG-Adapter module based on Distribution Loss, which reduces distribution discrepancy and ensures style consistency. Extensive experiments show that SatelliteMaker achieves state-of-the-art performance across multiple tasks.

Rainy: Unlocking Satellite Calibration for Deep Learning in Precipitation

Precipitation plays a critical role in the Earth's hydrological cycle, directly affecting ecosystems, agriculture, and water resource management. Accurate precipitation estimation and prediction are crucial for understanding climate dynamics, disaster preparedness, and environmental monitoring. In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has gained increasing attention in quantitative remote sensing (QRS), enabling more advanced data analysis and improving precipitation estimation accuracy. Although traditional methods have been widely used for precipitation estimation, they face limitations due to the difficulty of data acquisition and the challenge of capturing complex feature relationships. Furthermore, the lack of standardized multi-source satellite datasets, and in most cases, the exclusive reliance on station data, significantly hinders the effective application of advanced AI models. To address these challenges, we propose the Rainy dataset, a multi-source spatio-temporal dataset that integrates pure satellite data with station data, and propose Taper Loss, designed to fill the gap in tasks where only in-situ data is available without area-wide support. The Rainy dataset supports five main tasks: (1) satellite calibration, (2) precipitation event prediction, (3) precipitation level prediction, (4) spatiotemporal prediction, and (5) precipitation downscaling. For each task, we selected benchmark models and evaluation metrics to provide valuable references for researchers. Using precipitation as an example, the Rainy dataset and Taper Loss demonstrate the seamless collaboration between QRS and computer vision, offering data support for AI for Science in the field of QRS and providing valuable insights for interdisciplinary collaboration and integration.

A method for estimating forest carbon storage distribution density via artificial intelligence generated content model

Forest is the most significant land-based carbon storage mechanism. The forest carbon sink can effectively decrease the atmospheric CO2 concentration and mitigate climate change. Remote sensing estimation not only ensures high accuracy of data, but also enables large-scale area observation. Optical images provide the possibility for long-term monitoring, which is a potential issue in the future carbon storage estimation research. We chose Huize County, Qujing City, Yunnan Province, China as the study area, took GF-1 WFV satellite image as the data, introduced the KD-VGG module to extract the initial features, and proposed the improved implicit diffusion model (IIDM). The results showed that: (1) The VGG-19 module after knowledge distillation can realize the initial feature extraction, reduce the inference time and improve the accuracy in the case of reducing the number of model parameters. (2) The Attention + MLP module was added for feature fusion to obtain the relationship between global and local features and realized the restoration of high-fidelity images in the continuous scale range. (3) The IIDM model proposed in this paper had the highest estimation accuracy, with RMSE of 28.68, which was 13.16 higher than that of the regression model, about 31.45%. In the estimation of carbon storage, the generative model can extract deeper features, and its performance was significantly better than other models. It demonstrated the feasibility of artificial intelligence-generated content (AIGC) in the field of quantitative remote sensing and provided valuable insights for the study of carbon neutralization effect. By combining the actual characteristics of the forest, the regional carbon storage estimation with a resolution of 16-meter was utilized to provide a significant theoretical basis for the formulation of forest carbon sink regulation.

Estimating forest carbon stocks from high-resolution remote sensing imagery by reducing domain shift with style transfer

Forests function as crucial carbon reservoirs on land, and their carbon sinks can efficiently reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations and mitigate climate change. Currently, the overall trend for monitoring and assessing forest carbon stocks is to integrate ground monitoring sample data with satellite remote sensing imagery. This style of analysis facilitates large-scale observation. However, these techniques require improvement in accuracy. We used GF-1 WFV and Landsat TM images to analyze Huize County, Qujing City, Yunnan Province in China. Using the style transfer method, we introduced Swin Transformer to extract global features through attention mechanisms, converting the carbon stock estimation into an image translation.