Unifying UAV Cross-View Geo-Localization via 3D Geometric Perception

Cross-view geo-localization for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) operating in GNSS-denied environments remains challenging due to the severe geometric discrepancy between oblique UAV imagery and orthogonal satellite maps. Most existing methods address this problem through a decoupled pipeline of place retrieval and pose estimation, implicitly treating perspective distortion as appearance noise rather than an explicit geometric transformation. In this work, we propose a geometry-aware UAV geo-localization framework that explicitly models the 3D scene geometry to unify coarse place recognition and fine-grained pose estimation within a single inference pipeline. Our approach reconstructs a local 3D scene from multi-view UAV image sequences using a Visual Geometry Grounded Transformer (VGGT), and renders a virtual Bird's-Eye View (BEV) representation that orthorectifies the UAV perspective to align with satellite imagery. This BEV serves as a geometric intermediary that enables robust cross-view retrieval and provides spatial priors for accurate 3 Degrees of Freedom (3-DoF) pose regression. To efficiently handle multiple location hypotheses, we introduce a Satellite-wise Attention Block that isolates the interaction between each satellite candidate and the reconstructed UAV scene, preventing inter-candidate interference while maintaining linear computational complexity. In addition, we release a recalibrated version of the University-1652 dataset with precise coordinate annotations and spatial overlap analysis, enabling rigorous evaluation of end-to-end localization accuracy. Extensive experiments on the refined University-1652 benchmark and SUES-200 demonstrate that our method significantly outperforms state-of-the-art baselines, achieving robust meter-level localization accuracy and improved generalization in complex urban environments.

LLM REgression with a Latent Iterative State Head

We present RELISH (REgression with a Latent Iterative State Head), a novel, lightweight architecture designed for text regression with large language models. Rather than decoding numeric targets as text or aggregating multiple generated outputs, RELISH predicts scalar values directly from frozen LLM representations by iteratively refining a learned latent state through cross-attention over token-level representations, and then mapping the final state to a point estimate with a linear regressor. Across five datasets, four LLM backbones, and two LLM training regimes, RELISH consistently outperforms prior baselines from all three major LLM regression families, including autoregressive decoding, regression-aware inference, and existing predictive head methods. Despite these gains, RELISH remains highly parameter-efficient, requiring only 3.4-3.7M trainable parameters across frozen LLM backbones (only 0.01-0.04% additional overhead), far less than LoRA-based alternatives that grow with model size (0.26-0.42%).

Behavioral Score Diffusion: Model-Free Trajectory Planning via Kernel-Based Score Estimation from Data

Diffusion-based trajectory optimization has emerged as a powerful planning paradigm, but existing methods require either learned score networks trained on large datasets or analytical dynamics models for score computation. We introduce \emph{Behavioral Score Diffusion} (BSD), a training-free and model-free trajectory planner that computes the diffusion score function directly from a library of trajectory data via kernel-weighted estimation. At each denoising step, BSD retrieves relevant trajectories using a triple-kernel weighting scheme -- diffusion proximity, state context, and goal relevance -- and computes a Nadaraya-Watson estimate of the denoised trajectory. The diffusion noise schedule naturally controls kernel bandwidths, creating a multi-scale nonparametric regression: broad averaging of global behavioral patterns at high noise, fine-grained local interpolation at low noise. This coarse-to-fine structure handles nonlinear dynamics without linearization or parametric assumptions. Safety is preserved by applying shielded rollout on kernel-estimated state trajectories, identical to existing model-based approaches. We evaluate BSD on four robotic systems of increasing complexity (3D--6D state spaces) in a parking scenario. BSD with fixed bandwidth achieves 98.5\% of the model-based baseline's average reward across systems while requiring no dynamics model, using only 1{,}000 pre-collected trajectories. BSD substantially outperforms nearest-neighbor retrieval (18--63\% improvement), confirming that the diffusion denoising mechanism is essential for effective data-driven planning.

Minimum Norm Interpolation via The Local Theory of Banach Spaces: The Role of $2$-Uniform Convexity

The minimum-norm interpolator (MNI) framework has recently attracted considerable attention as a tool for understanding generalization in overparameterized models, such as neural networks. In this work, we study the MNI under a $2$-uniform convexity assumption, which is weaker than requiring the norm to be induced by an inner product, and it typically does not admit a closed-form solution. At a high level, we show that this condition yields an upper bound on the MNI bias in both linear and nonlinear models. We further show that this bound is sharp for overparameterized linear regression when the unit ball of the norm is in isotropic (or John's) position, and the covariates are isotropic, symmetric, i.i.d. sub-Gaussian, such as vectors with i.i.d. Bernoulli entries. Finally, under the same assumption on the covariates, we prove sharp generalization bounds for the $\ell_p$-MNI when $p \in \bigl(1 + C/\log d, 2\bigr]$. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to establish sharp bounds for non-Gaussian covariates in linear models when the norm is not induced by an inner product. This work is deeply inspired by classical works on $K$-convexity, and more modern work on the geometry of 2-uniform and isotropic convex bodies.

Risk-Aware Batch Testing for Performance Regression Detection

Performance regression testing is essential in large-scale continuous-integration (CI) systems, yet executing full performance suites for every commit is prohibitively expensive. Prior work on performance regression prediction and batch testing has shown independent benefits, but each faces practical limitations: predictive models are rarely integrated into CI decision-making, and conventional batching strategies ignore commit-level heterogeneity. We unify these strands by introducing a risk-aware framework that integrates machine-learned commit risk with adaptive batching. Using Mozilla Firefox as a case study, we construct a production-derived dataset of human-confirmed regressions aligned chronologically with Autoland, and fine-tune ModernBERT, CodeBERT, and LLaMA-3.1 variants to estimate commit-level performance regression risk, achieving up to 0.694 ROC-AUC with CodeBERT. The risk scores drive a family of risk-aware batching strategies, including Risk-Aged Priority Batching and Risk-Adaptive Stream Batching, evaluated through realistic CI simulations. Across thousands of historical Firefox commits, our best overall configuration, Risk-Aged Priority Batching with linear aggregation (RAPB-la), yields a Pareto improvement over Mozilla's production-inspired baseline. RAPB-la reduces total test executions by 32.4%, decreases mean feedback time by 3.8%, maintains mean time-to-culprit at approximately the baseline level, reduces maximum time-to-culprit by 26.2%, and corresponds to an estimated annual infrastructure cost savings of approximately $491K under our cost model. These results demonstrate that risk-aware batch testing can reduce CI resource consumption while improving diagnostic timeliness. To support reproducibility and future research, we release a complete replication package containing all datasets, fine-tuning pipelines, and implementations of our batching algorithms.

AutoStan: Autonomous Bayesian Model Improvement via Predictive Feedback

We present AutoStan, a framework in which a command-line interface (CLI) coding agent autonomously builds and iteratively improves Bayesian models written in Stan. The agent operates in a loop, writing a Stan model file, executing MCMC sampling, then deciding whether to keep or revert each change based on two complementary feedback signals: the negative log predictive density (NLPD) on held-out data and the sampler's own diagnostics (divergences, R-hat, effective sample size). We evaluate AutoStan on five datasets with diverse modeling structures. On a synthetic regression dataset with outliers, the agent progresses from naive linear regression to a model with Student-t robustness, nonlinear heteroscedastic structure, and an explicit contamination mixture, matching or outperforming TabPFN, a state-of-the-art black-box method, while remaining fully interpretable. Across four additional experiments, the same mechanism discovers hierarchical partial pooling, varying-slope models with correlated random effects, and a Poisson attack/defense model for soccer. No search algorithm, critic module, or domain-specific instructions are needed. This is, to our knowledge, the first demonstration that a CLI coding agent can autonomously write and iteratively improve Stan code for diverse Bayesian modeling problems.

Joint Time-Phase Synchronization for Distributed Sensing Networks via Feature-Level Hyper-Plane Regression

Achieving coherent integration in distributed Internet of Things (IoT) sensing networks requires precise synchronization to jointly compensate clock offsets and radio-frequency (RF) phase errors. Conventional two-step protocols suffer from time-phase coupling, where residual timing offsets degrade phase coherence. This paper proposes a generalized hyper-plane regression (GHR) framework for joint calibration by transforming coupled spatiotemporal phase evolution into a unified regression model, enabling effective parameter decoupling. To support resource-constrained IoT edge nodes, a feature-level distributed architecture is developed. By adopting a linear frequency-modulated (LFM) waveform, the model order is reduced, yielding linear computational complexity. In addition, a unidirectional feature transmission mechanism eliminates the communication overhead of bidirectional timestamp exchange, making the approach suitable for resource-constrained IoT networks. Simulation results demonstrate reliable picosecond-level synchronization accuracy under severe noise across kilometer-scale distributed IoT sensing networks.

Multimodal Analytics of Cybersecurity Crisis Preparation Exercises: What Predicts Success?

Instructional alignment, the match between intended cognition and enacted activity, is central to effective instruction but hard to operationalize at scale. We examine alignment in cybersecurity simulations using multimodal traces from 23 teams (76 students) across five exercise sessions. Study 1 codes objectives and team emails with Bloom's taxonomy and models the completion of key exercise tasks with generalized linear mixed models. Alignment, defined as the discrepancy between required and enacted Bloom levels, predicts success, whereas the Bloom category alone does not predict success once discrepancy is considered. Study 2 compares predictive feature families using grouped cross-validation and l1-regularized logistic regression. Text embeddings and log features outperform Bloom-only models (AUC~0.74 and 0.71 vs. 0.55), and their combination performs best (Test AUC~0.80), with Bloom frequencies adding little. Overall, the work offers a measure of alignment for simulations and shows that multimodal traces best forecast performance, while alignment provides interpretable diagnostic insight.

Fisheye3R: Adapting Unified 3D Feed-Forward Foundation Models to Fisheye Lenses

Feed-forward foundation models for multi-view 3-dimensional (3D) reconstruction have been trained on large-scale datasets of perspective images; when tested on wide field-of-view images, e.g., from a fisheye camera, their performance degrades. Their error arises from changes in spatial positions of pixels due to a non-linear projection model that maps 3D points onto the 2D image plane. While one may surmise that training on fisheye images would resolve this problem, there are far fewer fisheye images with ground truth than perspective images, which limit generalization. To enable inference on imagery exhibiting high radial distortion, we propose Fisheye3R, a novel adaptation framework that extends these multi-view 3D reconstruction foundation models to natively accommodate fisheye inputs without performance regression on perspective images. To address the scarcity of fisheye images and ground truth, we introduce flexible learning schemes that support self-supervised adaptation using only unlabeled perspective images and supervised adaptation without any fisheye training data. Extensive experiments across three foundation models, including VGGT, $π^3$, and MapAnything, demonstrate that our approach consistently improves camera pose, depth, point map, and field-of-view estimation on fisheye images.

Neural Network Models for Contextual Regression

We propose a neural network model for contextual regression in which the regression model depends on contextual features that determine the active submodel and an algorithm to fit the model. The proposed simple contextual neural network (SCtxtNN) separates context identification from context-specific regression, resulting in a structured and interpretable architecture with fewer parameters than a fully connected feed-forward network. We show mathematically that the proposed architecture is sufficient to represent contextual linear regression models using only standard neural network components. Numerical experiments are provided to support the theoretical result, showing that the proposed model achieves lower excess mean squared error and more stable performance than feed-forward neural networks with comparable numbers of parameters, while larger networks improve accuracy only at the cost of increased complexity. The results suggest that incorporating contextual structure can improve model efficiency while preserving interpretability.