GIMS: Image Matching System Based on Adaptive Graph Construction and Graph Neural Network

Feature-based image matching has extensive applications in computer vision. Keypoints detected in images can be naturally represented as graph structures, and Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have been shown to outperform traditional deep learning techniques. Consequently, the paradigm of image matching via GNNs has gained significant prominence in recent academic research. In this paper, we first introduce an innovative adaptive graph construction method that utilizes a filtering mechanism based on distance and dynamic threshold similarity. This method dynamically adjusts the criteria for incorporating new vertices based on the characteristics of existing vertices, allowing for the construction of more precise and robust graph structures while avoiding redundancy. We further combine the vertex processing capabilities of GNNs with the global awareness capabilities of Transformers to enhance the model's representation of spatial and feature information within graph structures. This hybrid model provides a deeper understanding of the interrelationships between vertices and their contributions to the matching process. Additionally, we employ the Sinkhorn algorithm to iteratively solve for optimal matching results. Finally, we validate our system using extensive image datasets and conduct comprehensive comparative experiments. Experimental results demonstrate that our system achieves an average improvement of 3.8x-40.3x in overall matching performance. Additionally, the number of vertices and edges significantly impacts training efficiency and memory usage; therefore, we employ multi-GPU technology to accelerate the training process. Our code is available at https://github.com/songxf1024/GIMS.

MegaPairs: Massive Data Synthesis For Universal Multimodal Retrieval

Despite the rapidly growing demand for multimodal retrieval, progress in this field remains severely constrained by a lack of training data. In this paper, we introduce MegaPairs, a novel data synthesis method that leverages vision language models (VLMs) and open-domain images, together with a massive synthetic dataset generated from this method. Our empirical analysis shows that MegaPairs generates high-quality data, enabling the multimodal retriever to significantly outperform the baseline model trained on 70$\times$ more data from existing datasets. Moreover, since MegaPairs solely relies on general image corpora and open-source VLMs, it can be easily scaled up, enabling continuous improvements in retrieval performance. In this stage, we produced more than 26 million training instances and trained several models of varying sizes using this data. These new models achieve state-of-the-art zero-shot performance across 4 popular composed image retrieval (CIR) benchmarks and the highest overall performance on the 36 datasets provided by MMEB. They also demonstrate notable performance improvements with additional downstream fine-tuning. Our produced dataset, well-trained models, and data synthesis pipeline will be made publicly available to facilitate the future development of this field.

Boosting Long-Context Management via Query-Guided Activation Refilling

Processing long contexts poses a significant challenge for large language models (LLMs) due to their inherent context-window limitations and the computational burden of extensive key-value (KV) activations, which severely impact efficiency. For information-seeking tasks, full context perception is often unnecessary, as a query's information needs can dynamically range from localized details to a global perspective, depending on its complexity. However, existing methods struggle to adapt effectively to these dynamic information needs. In the paper, we propose a method for processing long-context information-seeking tasks via query-guided Activation Refilling (ACRE). ACRE constructs a Bi-layer KV Cache for long contexts, where the layer-1 (L1) cache compactly captures global information, and the layer-2 (L2) cache provides detailed and localized information. ACRE establishes a proxying relationship between the two caches, allowing the input query to attend to the L1 cache and dynamically refill it with relevant entries from the L2 cache. This mechanism integrates global understanding with query-specific local details, thus improving answer decoding. Experiments on a variety of long-context information-seeking datasets demonstrate ACRE's effectiveness, achieving improvements in both performance and efficiency.

Boosting Long-Context Information Seeking via Query-Guided Activation Refilling

Processing long contexts poses a significant challenge for large language models (LLMs) due to their inherent context-window limitations and the computational burden of extensive key-value (KV) activations, which severely impact efficiency. For information-seeking tasks, full context perception is often unnecessary, as a query's information needs can dynamically range from localized details to a global perspective, depending on its complexity. However, existing methods struggle to adapt effectively to these dynamic information needs. In the paper, we propose a method for processing long-context information-seeking tasks via query-guided Activation Refilling (ACRE). ACRE constructs a Bi-layer KV Cache for long contexts, where the layer-1 (L1) cache compactly captures global information, and the layer-2 (L2) cache provides detailed and localized information. ACRE establishes a proxying relationship between the two caches, allowing the input query to attend to the L1 cache and dynamically refill it with relevant entries from the L2 cache. This mechanism integrates global understanding with query-specific local details, thus improving answer decoding. Experiments on a variety of long-context information-seeking datasets demonstrate ACRE's effectiveness, achieving improvements in both performance and efficiency.

AIR-Bench: Automated Heterogeneous Information Retrieval Benchmark

Evaluation plays a crucial role in the advancement of information retrieval (IR) models. However, current benchmarks, which are based on predefined domains and human-labeled data, face limitations in addressing evaluation needs for emerging domains both cost-effectively and efficiently. To address this challenge, we propose the Automated Heterogeneous Information Retrieval Benchmark (AIR-Bench). AIR-Bench is distinguished by three key features: 1) Automated. The testing data in AIR-Bench is automatically generated by large language models (LLMs) without human intervention. 2) Heterogeneous. The testing data in AIR-Bench is generated with respect to diverse tasks, domains and languages. 3) Dynamic. The domains and languages covered by AIR-Bench are constantly augmented to provide an increasingly comprehensive evaluation benchmark for community developers. We develop a reliable and robust data generation pipeline to automatically create diverse and high-quality evaluation datasets based on real-world corpora. Our findings demonstrate that the generated testing data in AIR-Bench aligns well with human-labeled testing data, making AIR-Bench a dependable benchmark for evaluating IR models. The resources in AIR-Bench are publicly available at https://github.com/AIR-Bench/AIR-Bench.

Imitate, Explore, and Self-Improve: A Reproduction Report on Slow-thinking Reasoning Systems

Recently, slow-thinking reasoning systems, such as o1, have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in solving complex reasoning tasks. These systems typically engage in an extended thinking process before responding to a query, allowing them to generate more thorough, accurate, and well-reasoned solutions. These systems are primarily developed and maintained by industry, with their core techniques not publicly disclosed. In response, an increasing number of studies from the research community aim to explore the technical foundations underlying these powerful reasoning systems. Building on these prior efforts, this paper presents a reproduction report on implementing o1-like reasoning systems. We introduce an "imitate, explore, and self-improve" framework as our primary technical approach to train the reasoning model. In the initial phase, we use distilled long-form thought data to fine-tune the reasoning model, enabling it to invoke a slow-thinking mode. The model is then encouraged to explore challenging problems by generating multiple rollouts, which can result in increasingly more high-quality trajectories that lead to correct answers. Furthermore, the model undergoes self-improvement by iteratively refining its training dataset. To verify the effectiveness of this approach, we conduct extensive experiments on three challenging benchmarks. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach achieves competitive performance compared to industry-level reasoning systems on these benchmarks.

Technical Report: Enhancing LLM Reasoning with Reward-guided Tree Search

Recently, test-time scaling has garnered significant attention from the research community, largely due to the substantial advancements of the o1 model released by OpenAI. By allocating more computational resources during the inference phase, large language models~(LLMs) can extensively explore the solution space by generating more thought tokens or diverse solutions, thereby producing more accurate responses. However, developing an o1-like reasoning approach is challenging, and researchers have been making various attempts to advance this open area of research. In this paper, we present a preliminary exploration into enhancing the reasoning abilities of LLMs through reward-guided tree search algorithms. This framework is implemented by integrating the policy model, reward model, and search algorithm. It is primarily constructed around a tree search algorithm, where the policy model navigates a dynamically expanding tree guided by a specially trained reward model. We thoroughly explore various design considerations necessary for implementing this framework and provide a detailed report of the technical aspects. To assess the effectiveness of our approach, we focus on mathematical reasoning tasks and conduct extensive evaluations on four challenging datasets, significantly enhancing the reasoning abilities of LLMs.

Physics-informed Machine Learning for Battery Pack Thermal Management

With the popularity of electric vehicles, the demand for lithium-ion batteries is increasing. Temperature significantly influences the performance and safety of batteries. Battery thermal management systems can effectively control the temperature of batteries; therefore, the performance and safety can be ensured. However, the development process of battery thermal management systems is time-consuming and costly due to the extensive training dataset needed by data-driven models requiring enormous computational costs for finite element analysis. Therefore, a new approach to constructing surrogate models is needed in the era of AI. Physics-informed machine learning enforces the physical laws in surrogate models, making it the perfect candidate for estimating battery pack temperature distribution. In this study, we first developed a 21700 battery pack indirect liquid cooling system with cold plates on the top and bottom with thermal paste surrounding the battery cells. Then, the simplified finite element model was built based on experiment results. Due to the high coolant flow rate, the cold plates can be considered as constant temperature boundaries, while battery cells are the heat sources. The physics-informed convolutional neural network served as a surrogate model to estimate the temperature distribution of the battery pack. The loss function was constructed considering the heat conduction equation based on the finite difference method. The physics-informed loss function helped the convergence of the training process with less data. As a result, the physics-informed convolutional neural network showed more than 15 percents improvement in accuracy compared to the data-driven method with the same training data.

AssistRAG: Boosting the Potential of Large Language Models with an Intelligent Information Assistant

The emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) has significantly advanced natural language processing, but these models often generate factually incorrect information, known as "hallucination". Initial retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) methods like the "Retrieve-Read" framework was inadequate for complex reasoning tasks. Subsequent prompt-based RAG strategies and Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) methods improved performance but required frequent retraining and risked altering foundational LLM capabilities. To cope with these challenges, we propose Assistant-based Retrieval-Augmented Generation (AssistRAG), integrating an intelligent information assistant within LLMs. This assistant manages memory and knowledge through tool usage, action execution, memory building, and plan specification. Using a two-phase training approach, Curriculum Assistant Learning and Reinforced Preference Optimization. AssistRAG enhances information retrieval and decision-making. Experiments show AssistRAG significantly outperforms benchmarks, especially benefiting less advanced LLMs, by providing superior reasoning capabilities and accurate responses.

SEGMN: A Structure-Enhanced Graph Matching Network for Graph Similarity Learning

Graph similarity computation (GSC) aims to quantify the similarity score between two graphs. Although recent GSC methods based on graph neural networks (GNNs) take advantage of intra-graph structures in message passing, few of them fully utilize the structures presented by edges to boost the representation of their connected nodes. Moreover, previous cross-graph node embedding matching lacks the perception of the overall structure of the graph pair, due to the fact that the node representations from GNNs are confined to the intra-graph structure, causing the unreasonable similarity score. Intuitively, the cross-graph structure represented in the assignment graph is helpful to rectify the inappropriate matching. Therefore, we propose a structure-enhanced graph matching network (SEGMN). Equipped with a dual embedding learning module and a structure perception matching module, SEGMN achieves structure enhancement in both embedding learning and cross-graph matching. The dual embedding learning module incorporates adjacent edge representation into each node to achieve a structure-enhanced representation. The structure perception matching module achieves cross-graph structure enhancement through assignment graph convolution. The similarity score of each cross-graph node pair can be rectified by aggregating messages from structurally relevant node pairs. Experimental results on benchmark datasets demonstrate that SEGMN outperforms the state-of-the-art GSC methods in the GED regression task, and the structure perception matching module is plug-and-play, which can further improve the performance of the baselines by up to 25%.