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This paper introduces BiMediX2, a bilingual (Arabic-English) Bio-Medical EXpert Large Multimodal Model (LMM) with a unified architecture that integrates text and visual modalities, enabling advanced image understanding and medical applications. BiMediX2 leverages the Llama3.1 architecture and integrates text and visual capabilities to facilitate seamless interactions in both English and Arabic, supporting text-based inputs and multi-turn conversations involving medical images. The model is trained on an extensive bilingual healthcare dataset consisting of 1.6M samples of diverse medical interactions for both text and image modalities, mixed in Arabic and English. We also propose the first bilingual GPT-4o based medical LMM benchmark named BiMed-MBench. BiMediX2 is benchmarked on both text-based and image-based tasks, achieving state-of-the-art performance across several medical benchmarks. It outperforms recent state-of-the-art models in medical LLM evaluation benchmarks. Our model also sets a new benchmark in multimodal medical evaluations with over 9% improvement in English and over 20% in Arabic evaluations. Additionally, it surpasses GPT-4 by around 9% in UPHILL factual accuracy evaluations and excels in various medical Visual Question Answering, Report Generation, and Report Summarization tasks. The project page including source code and the trained model, is available at https://github.com/mbzuai-oryx/BiMediX2.

A skip graph is a resilient application-layer routing structure that supports range queries of distributed k-dimensional data. By sorting deterministic keys into groups based on locally computed random membership vectors, nodes in a standard skip graph can optimize range query performance in mobile networks such as unmanned aerial vehicle swarms. We propose a skip graph extension that inverts the key and membership vector roles and bases group membership on deterministic vectors derived from the z-ordering of k-dimensional data and sorting within groups is based on locally computed random keys., Comment: archival pre-print of this k-D distributed prefix-free distributed encoding technique ahead of another arXiv release which will cite this work, specifically with respect to using a more extensive prefix-free encoding technique to localize token partitions in an arbitrary input/output context of an LLM, SSM, or other k-D tokenized model

An extreme yet reconfigurable nonlinear response to a single photon by a photonic system is crucial for realizing a universal two-photon gate, an elementary building block for photonic quantum computing. Yet such a response, characterized by the photon blockade effect, has only been achieved in atomic systems or solid states ones that are difficult to scale up. Here we demonstrate electrically tunable partial photon blockade in dipolar waveguide polaritons on a semiconductor chip, measured via photon-correlations. Remarkably, these "dipolar photons" display a two-orders-of-magnitude stronger nonlinearity compared to unpolarized polaritons, with an extracted dipolar blockade radius up to more than 4 $\mu$m, significantly larger than the optical wavelength, and comparable to that of atomic Rydberg polaritons. Furthermore, we show that the dipolar interaction can be electrically switched and locally configured by simply tuning the gate voltage. Finally we show that with a simple modification of the design, a full photon blockade is expected, setting a new route towards scalable, reconfigurable, chip-integrated quantum photonic circuits with strong two-photon nonlinearities., Comment: 30 pages, 11 figures

Termination of the fractional quantum Hall states (FQHSs) and the emergence of Wigner crystal phases at very small Landau level filling factors ($\nu$) have been of continued interest for decades. Recently, in ultra-high-quality, dilute GaAs 2D electron systems (2DESs), strong evidence was reported for FQHSs at $\nu=1/7, 2/13$ and 2/11 which fall in the $\nu = p/(6p\pm1)$ Jain series of FQHSs, interpreted as integer ($p = 1$, 2) QHSs of 6-flux composite fermions ($^6$CFs). These states are surrounded by strongly-insulating phases which are generally believed to be Wigner crystals. Here, we study an ultra-high-quality 2DES confined to an AlAs quantum well where the 2D electrons have a much larger effective mass ($m^*\simeq 0.45 m_e$) and a smaller dielectric constant ($\epsilon\simeq10\epsilon_0$) compared to GaAs 2D electrons ($m^*\simeq 0.067 m_e$ and $\epsilon\simeq13\epsilon_0$). This combination of $m^*$ and $\epsilon$ renders the Landau level mixing parameter $\kappa$, defined as the ratio of the Coulomb and cyclotron energies, $\simeq 9$ times larger in AlAs 2DESs ($\kappa\propto m^*/\epsilon$). Qualitatively similar to the GaAs 2DESs, we observe an insulating behavior reentrant around a strong $\nu=1/5$ FQHS, and extending to $\nu<1/5$. Additionally, we observe a clear minimum in magnetoresistance at $\nu=2/11$, and an inflection point at $\nu=1/7$ which is very reminiscent of the first report of an emerging FQHS at $\nu=1/7$ in GaAs 2DESs. The data provide evidence for developing QHSs of $^6$CFs at very small fillings. This is very surprising because $\kappa$ near $\nu \simeq 1/6$ in our sample is very large ($\simeq4$), and larger $\kappa$ has the tendency to favor Wigner crystal states over FQHSs at small fillings. Our data should inspire calculations that accurately incorporate $\kappa$ in competing many-body phases of $^6$CFs at extremely small fillings near $\nu=1/6$., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, journal

High-fidelity mid-circuit measurements, which read out the state of specific qubits in a multiqubit processor without destroying them or disrupting their neighbors, are a critical component for useful quantum computing. They enable fault-tolerant quantum error correction, dynamic circuits, and other paths to solving classically intractable problems. But there are almost no methods to assess their performance comprehensively. We address this gap by introducing the first randomized benchmarking protocol that measures the rate at which mid-circuit measurements induce errors in many-qubit circuits. Using this protocol, we detect and eliminate previously undetected measurement-induced crosstalk in a 20-qubit trapped-ion quantum computer. Then, we use the same protocol to measure the rate of measurement-induced crosstalk error on a 27-qubit IBM Q processor, and quantify how much of that error is eliminated by dynamical decoupling., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, plus supplemental notes

In condensed-matter physics, supersolids refer to many-body quantum states breaking translational symmetry while exhibiting off-diagonal long-range order. This combination is debated for commensurate crystals, however it is accessible in lattice potentials fractionally filled by bosons with extended interactions. Here, we report such lattice supersolid with dipolar excitons confined in a sub-wavelength period potential. Excitons implement the Dicke-Hubbard Hamiltonian controlled by spatially extended dipolar and Dicke correlations. At half lattice-filling, these induce both a condensation in a single sub-radiant state and a dipolar quantum order spontaneously breaking the lattice symmetry. This combination signals a lattice supersolid dissipatively prepared across 8x8 sites. Our study underlines that nanoscopic exciton arrays open a route to explore new frontiers of quantum matter, e.g. many-body entanglement, at the interface with quantum nano-photonics., Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures

We present the localization and host galaxy of FRB 20190208A, a repeating source of fast radio bursts (FRBs) discovered using CHIME/FRB. As part of the PRECISE repeater localization program on the EVN, we monitored FRB 20190208A for 65.6 hours at $\sim1.4$ GHz and detected a single burst, which led to its VLBI localization with 260 mas uncertainty (2$\sigma$). Follow-up optical observations with the MMT Observatory ($i\gtrsim 25.7$ mag (AB)) found no visible host at the FRB position. Subsequent deeper observations with the GTC, however, revealed an extremely faint galaxy ($r=27.32 \pm0.16$ mag), very likely ($99.95 \%$) associated with FRB 20190208A. Given the dispersion measure of the FRB ($\sim580$ pc cm$^{-3}$), even the most conservative redshift estimate ($z_{\mathrm{max}}\sim0.83$) implies that this is the lowest-luminosity FRB host to date ($\lesssim10^8L_{\odot}$), even less luminous than the dwarf host of FRB 20121102A. We investigate how localization precision and the depth of optical imaging affect host association, and discuss the implications of such a low-luminosity dwarf galaxy. Unlike the other repeaters with low-luminosity hosts, FRB 20190208A has a modest Faraday rotation measure of a few tens of rad m$^{-2}$, and EVN plus VLA observations reveal no associated compact persistent radio source. We also monitored FRB 20190208A for 40.4 hours over 2 years as part of the \'ECLAT repeating FRB monitoring campaign on the Nan\c{c}ay Radio Telescope, and detected one burst. Our results demonstrate that, in some cases, the robust association of an FRB with a host galaxy will require both high localization precision, as well as deep optical follow-up., Comment: submitted to ApJL

The growing use of large language models (LLMs) has raised concerns regarding their safety. While many studies have focused on English, the safety of LLMs in Arabic, with its linguistic and cultural complexities, remains under-explored. Here, we aim to bridge this gap. In particular, we present an Arab-region-specific safety evaluation dataset consisting of 5,799 questions, including direct attacks, indirect attacks, and harmless requests with sensitive words, adapted to reflect the socio-cultural context of the Arab world. To uncover the impact of different stances in handling sensitive and controversial topics, we propose a dual-perspective evaluation framework. It assesses the LLM responses from both governmental and opposition viewpoints. Experiments over five leading Arabic-centric and multilingual LLMs reveal substantial disparities in their safety performance. This reinforces the need for culturally specific datasets to ensure the responsible deployment of LLMs., Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, 10 tables

The paper discusses fast frequency control in bulk power systems using embedded networks of grid-forming energy storage resources. Differing from their traditional roles of regulating reserves, the storage resources in this work operate as fast-acting grid assets shaping transient dynamics. The storage resources in the network are autonomously controlled using local measurements for distributed frequency support during disturbance events. Further, the grid-forming inverter systems interfacing with the storage resources, are augmented with fast-acting safety controls designed to contain frequency transients within a prescribed tolerance band. The control action, derived from the storage network, improves the frequency nadirs in the system and prevents the severity of a disturbance from propagating far from the source. The paper also presents sensitivity studies to evaluate the impacts of storage capacity and inverter controller parameters on the dynamic performance of frequency control and disturbance localization. The performance of the safety-constrained grid-forming control is also compared with the more common grid-following control. The results are illustrated through case studies on an IEEE test system., Comment: accepted at the IEEE PES Electrical Energy Storage Applications and Technologies Conference (EESAT)

Inverter-based storages are poised to play a prominent role in future power grids with massive renewable generation. Grid-forming inverters (GFMs) are emerging as a dominant technology with synchronous generators (SG)-like characteristics through primary control loops. Advanced secondary control schemes, e.g., consensus algorithms, allow GFM-interfaced storage units to participate in frequency regulations and restore nominal frequency following grid disturbances. However, it is imperative to ensure transient frequency excursions do not violate critical safety limits while the grid transitions from pre- to post-disturbance operating point. This paper presents a hierarchical safety-enforced consensus method -- combining a device-layer (decentralized) transient safety filter with a secondary-layer (distributed) consensus coordination -- to achieve three distinct objectives: limiting transient frequency excursions to safe limits, minimizing frequency deviations from nominal, and ensuring coordinated power sharing among GFM-storage units. The proposed hierarchical (two-layered) safety-consensus technique is illustrated using a GFM-interfaced storage network on an IEEE 68-bus system under multiple grid transient scenarios., Comment: accepted for presentation at the IEEE Electrical Energy Storage Applications and Technologies Conference (EESAT)

XML simplifies data exchange among heterogeneous computers, but it is notoriously verbose and has spawned the development of many XML-specific compressors and binary formats. We present an XML test corpus and a combined efficiency metric integrating compression ratio and execution speed. We use this corpus and linear regression to assess 14 general-purpose and XML-specific compressors relative to the proposed metric. We also identify key factors when selecting a compressor. Our results show XMill or WBXML may be useful in some instances, but a general-purpose compressor is often the best choice., Comment: 1. test data at https://web.archive.org/web/20160805043420/http://chris-augeri.com/wp-content/uploads/docs/xml_compress.htm 2. one next step is testing newer compressors, e.g., Brotli, along with Zstandard, which leverages the asymmetric numeral system (ANS) 3. citations at https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=8178011010886368797&hl=en&as_sdt=5,33&sciodt=0,33

As large language models (LLMs) advance, their inability to autonomously execute tasks by directly interacting with external tools remains a critical limitation. Traditional methods rely on inputting tool descriptions as context, which is constrained by context length and requires separate, often inefficient, retrieval mechanisms. We introduce ToolGen, a paradigm shift that integrates tool knowledge directly into the LLM's parameters by representing each tool as a unique token. This enables the LLM to generate tool calls and arguments as part of its next token prediction capabilities, seamlessly blending tool invocation with language generation. Our framework allows the LLM to access and utilize a vast amount of tools with no additional retrieval step, significantly enhancing both performance and scalability. Experimental results with over 47,000 tools show that ToolGen not only achieves superior results in both tool retrieval and autonomous task completion but also sets the stage for a new era of AI agents that can adapt to tools across diverse domains. By fundamentally transforming tool retrieval into a generative process, ToolGen paves the way for more versatile, efficient, and autonomous AI systems. ToolGen enables end-to-end tool learning and opens opportunities for integration with other advanced techniques such as chain-of-thought and reinforcement learning, thereby expanding the practical capabilities of LLMs.

We present our analysis of supernovae serendipitously found to be radio-bright several years after their optical discovery. We used recent observations from the Australian SKA Pathfinder taken as part of the pilot Variables and Slow Transients and Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey programs. We identified 29 objects by cross-matching sources from these ASKAP observations with known core-collapse supernovae below a declination of $+40^{\circ}$ and with a redshift of $z\leq0.15$. Our results focus on eight cases that show potential late-time radio emission. These supernovae exhibit significantly greater amounts of radio emission than expected from the standard model of a single shockwave propagating through a spherical circumstellar medium, with a constant density structure produced by regular stellar mass-loss. We also discuss how we can learn from future ASKAP surveys about the circumstellar environments and emission mechanisms of supernovae that undergo late-time radio re-brightening. This pilot work tested and confirmed the potential of the Variables and Slow Transients survey to discover and study late-time supernova emission., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We introduce Loki, an open-source tool designed to address the growing problem of misinformation. Loki adopts a human-centered approach, striking a balance between the quality of fact-checking and the cost of human involvement. It decomposes the fact-checking task into a five-step pipeline: breaking down long texts into individual claims, assessing their check-worthiness, generating queries, retrieving evidence, and verifying the claims. Instead of fully automating the claim verification process, Loki provides essential information at each step to assist human judgment, especially for general users such as journalists and content moderators. Moreover, it has been optimized for latency, robustness, and cost efficiency at a commercially usable level. Loki is released under an MIT license and is available on GitHub. We also provide a video presenting the system and its capabilities.

We rigorously prove that in nearly arbitrary quantum spin chains with power-law-distributed random fields, namely such that the probability of a field exceeding $h$ scales as $h^{-\alpha}$, it is impossible for any operator evolving in the Heisenberg picture to spread with dynamical exponent less than $1/\alpha$. In particular, ballistic growth is impossible for $\alpha < 1$, diffusive growth is impossible for $\alpha < 1/2$, and any finite dynamical exponent becomes impossible for sufficiently small $\alpha$. This result thus establishes a wide family of models in which the disorder provably prevents conventional transport. We express the result as a tightening of Lieb-Robinson bounds due to random fields -- the proof modifies the standard derivation such that strong fields appear as effective weak interactions, and then makes use of analogous recent results for random-bond spin chains., Comment: Comments welcome!

Heterogeneously integrated hybrid photonic crystal cavities enable strong light-matter interactions with solid-state, optically addressable quantum memories. A key challenge to realizing high quality factor (Q) hybrid photonic crystals is the reduced index contrast on the substrate compared to suspended devices in air. This challenge is particularly acute for color centers in diamond because of diamond's high refractive index, which leads to increased scattering loss into the substrate. Here we develop a design methodology for hybrid photonic crystals utilizing a detailed understanding of substrate-mediated loss, which incorporates sensitivity to fabrication errors as a critical parameter. Using this methodology we design robust, high-Q, GaAs-on-diamond photonic crystal cavities, and by optimizing our fabrication procedure we experimentally realize cavities with Q approaching 30,000 at a resonance wavelength of 955 nm.

In the superionic phase of silver iodide, we observe a distorted tetragonal structure characterized by symmetry breaking in the cation distribution. This phase competes with the well known bcc phase, with a symmetric cation distribution at an energetic cost of only a few meV/atom. The small energy difference suggests that these competing structures may both be thermally accessible near the superionic transition temperature. We also find that the distribution of silver ions depends on the low-temperature parent polymorph, with memory persisting in the superionic phase on the nanosecond time scales accessible in our simulations. Furthermore, simulations on the order 100ns reveal that even at temperatures where the bcc phase is stable, significant fluctuations toward the tetragonal lattice structure remain. Our results are consistent with many "anomalous" experimental observations and offer a molecular mechanism for the "memory effect" in silver iodide.

Feeding the growing human population sustainably amidst climate change is one of the most important challenges in the 21st century. Current practices often lead to the overuse of agronomic inputs, such as synthetic fertilizers and water, resulting in environmental contamination and diminishing returns on crop productivity. The complexity of agricultural systems, involving plant-environment interactions and human management, presents significant scientific and technical challenges for developing sustainable practices. Addressing these challenges necessitates transdisciplinary research, involving intense collaboration among fields such as plant science, engineering, computer science, and social sciences. Here, we present five case studies from two research centers demonstrating successful transdisciplinary approaches toward more sustainable water and fertilizer use. These case studies span multiple scales. Starting from whole-plant signaling, we explore how reporter plants can transform our understanding of plant communication and enable efficient application of water and fertilizers. We then show how new fertilizer technologies could increase the availability of phosphorus in the soil. To accelerate advancements in breeding new cultivars, we discuss robotic technologies for high-throughput plant screening in different environments at a population scale. At the ecosystem scale, we investigate phosphorus recovery from aquatic systems and methods to minimize phosphorus leaching. Finally, as agricultural outputs affect all people, we show how to integrate stakeholder perspectives and needs into the research. With these case studies, we hope to encourage the scientific community to adopt transdisciplinary research and promote cross-training among biologists, engineers, and social scientists to drive discovery and innovation in advancing sustainable agricultural systems.

In non-Hermitian open quantum systems, such as polariton condensates, local tailoring of gains and losses opens up an interesting possibility to realize functional optical elements. Here, we demonstrate that deliberately introducing losses via a photonic defect, realized by reducing the quality factor of a DBR mirror locally within an ultrahigh-quality microcavity, may be utilized to create directed polariton currents towards the defect. We discuss the role of polariton-polariton interactions in the process and how to tailor the effective decay time of a polariton condensate via coupling to the defect. Our results highlight the far-reaching potential of non-Hermitian physics in polaritonics., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures

The paper presents a theoretical study on small-signal stability and damping in bulk power systems with multiple grid-forming inverter-based storage resources. A detailed analysis is presented, characterizing the impacts of inverter droop gains and storage size on the slower eigenvalues, particularly those concerning inter-area oscillation modes. From these parametric sensitivity studies, a set of necessary conditions are derived that the design of droop gain must satisfy to enhance damping performance. The analytical findings are structured into propositions highlighting potential design considerations for improving system stability. The findings are illustrated via numerical studies on an IEEE 68-bus grid-forming storage network., Comment: accepted for presentation at The 63rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control

Uncertainty quantification (UQ) is a perspective approach to detecting Large Language Model (LLM) hallucinations and low quality output. In this work, we address one of the challenges of UQ in generation tasks that arises from the conditional dependency between the generation steps of an LLM. We propose to learn this dependency from data. We train a regression model, which target variable is the gap between the conditional and the unconditional generation confidence. During LLM inference, we use this learned conditional dependency model to modulate the uncertainty of the current generation step based on the uncertainty of the previous step. Our experimental evaluation on nine datasets and three LLMs shows that the proposed method is highly effective for uncertainty quantification, achieving substantial improvements over rivaling approaches.

We apply logic-based machine learning techniques to facilitate cellular engineering and drive biological discovery, based on comprehensive databases of metabolic processes called genome-scale metabolic network models (GEMs). Predicted host behaviours are not always correctly described by GEMs. Learning the intricate genetic interactions within GEMs presents computational and empirical challenges. To address these, we describe a novel approach called Boolean Matrix Logic Programming (BMLP) by leveraging boolean matrices to evaluate large logic programs. We introduce a new system, $BMLP_{active}$, which efficiently explores the genomic hypothesis space by guiding informative experimentation through active learning. In contrast to sub-symbolic methods, $BMLP_{active}$ encodes a state-of-the-art GEM of a widely accepted bacterial host in an interpretable and logical representation using datalog logic programs. Notably, $BMLP_{active}$ can successfully learn the interaction between a gene pair with fewer training examples than random experimentation, overcoming the increase in experimental design space. $BMLP_{active}$ enables rapid optimisation of metabolic models and offers a realistic approach to a self-driving lab for microbial engineering., Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2405.06724

This work presents the use of graph learning for the prediction of multi-step experimental outcomes for applications across experimental research, including material science, chemistry, and biology. The viability of geometric learning for regression tasks was benchmarked against a collection of linear models through a combination of simulated and real-world data training studies. First, a selection of five arbitrarily designed multi-step surrogate functions were developed to reflect various features commonly found within experimental processes. A graph transformer network outperformed all tested linear models in scenarios that featured hidden interactions between process steps and sequence dependent features, while retaining equivalent performance in sequence agnostic scenarios. Then, a similar comparison was applied to real-world literature data on algorithm guided colloidal atomic layer deposition. Using the complete reaction sequence as training data, the graph neural network outperformed all linear models in predicting the three spectral properties for most training set sizes. Further implementation of graph neural networks and geometric representation of scientific processes for the prediction of experiment outcomes could lead to algorithm driven navigation of higher dimension parameter spaces and efficient exploration of more dynamic systems.

LLM (large language model) practitioners commonly notice that outputs can vary for the same inputs, but we have been unable to find work that evaluates LLM stability as the main objective. In our study of 6 deterministically configured LLMs across 8 common tasks with 5 identical runs, we see accuracy variations up to 10\%. In addition, no LLM consistently delivers repeatable accuracy across all tasks. We also show examples of variation that are not normally distributed and compare configurations with zero-shot/few-shot prompting and fine-tuned examples. To better quantify what is going on, we introduce metrics focused on stability: TARr@N for the total agreement rate at N runs over raw output, and TARa@N for total agreement over parsed-out answers. We suggest that stability metrics be integrated into leader boards and research results going forward.

This paper explores the task of automatic prediction of text spans in a legal problem description that support a legal area label. We use a corpus of problem descriptions written by laypeople in English that is annotated by practising lawyers. Inherent subjectivity exists in our task because legal area categorisation is a complex task, and lawyers often have different views on a problem, especially in the face of legally-imprecise descriptions of issues. Experiments show that training on majority-voted spans outperforms training on disaggregated ones., Comment: Accepted at WASSA 2024

The Hartmann test is a method used to measure the wavefront error in a focal optical system, wherein a mask with a pattern of small holes is placed at the system's aperture stop. By taking an image at a defocused plane, the differences between the ideal and real positions of the reimaged holes (called the transverse ray aberrations) can be measured, which can then be used to estimate the wavefront error. However, the Hartmann test is usually used with an on-axis field. In this paper, we present a wavefront sensing method which generalizes the classical Hartmann test for off-axis field angles and arbitrary reference wavefronts. Our method involves taking images at two defocused planes, and then using the real reimaged hole positions on both planes to estimate the trajectories of rays from the system's exit pupil, at which the reference wavefront is situated. We then propagate the rays forward from the reference wavefront to one of the two defocused planes, in order to find the ideal reimaged hole positions, from which we can compute transverse ray aberrations. We derive and solve a pair of nonlinear partial differential equations relating transverse ray aberrations to wavefront error, using Zernike decomposition and nonlinear least squares. Our method has been verified on simulated data from the 7-lens f/2.25 red camera system of the GMT-Consortium Large Earth Finder (G-CLEF), a high resolution optical echelle spectrograph which will be a first light instrument for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT)., Comment: 18 pages, 23 figures, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2024

We propose selective debiasing -- an inference-time safety mechanism that aims to increase the overall quality of models in terms of prediction performance and fairness in the situation when re-training a model is prohibitive. The method is inspired by selective prediction, where some predictions that are considered low quality are discarded at inference time. In our approach, we identify the potentially biased model predictions and, instead of discarding them, we debias them using LEACE -- a post-processing debiasing method. To select problematic predictions, we propose a bias quantification approach based on KL divergence, which achieves better results than standard UQ methods. Experiments with text classification datasets demonstrate that selective debiasing helps to close the performance gap between post-processing methods and at-training and pre-processing debiasing techniques.

Additive manufacturing has revolutionized structural optimization by enhancing component strength and reducing material requirements. One approach used to achieve these improvements is the application of multi-lattice structures, where the macro-scale performance relies on the detailed design of mesostructural lattice elements. Many current approaches to designing such structures use data-driven design to generate multi-lattice transition regions, making use of machine learning models that are informed solely by the geometry of the mesostructures. However, it remains unclear if the integration of mechanical properties into the dataset used to train such machine learning models would be beneficial beyond using geometric data alone. To address this issue, this work implements and evaluates a hybrid geometry/property Variational Autoencoder (VAE) for generating multi-lattice transition regions. In our study, we found that hybrid VAEs demonstrate enhanced performance in maintaining stiffness continuity through transition regions, indicating their suitability for design tasks requiring smooth mechanical properties.

The spin-exotic hybrid meson $\pi_{1}(1600)$ is predicted to have a large decay rate to the $\omega\pi\pi$ final state. Using 76.6~pb$^{-1}$ of data collected with the GlueX detector, we measure the cross sections for the reactions $\gamma p \to \omega \pi^+ \pi^- p$, $\gamma p \to \omega \pi^0 \pi^0 p$, and $\gamma p\to\omega\pi^-\pi^0\Delta^{++}$ in the range $E_\gamma =$ 8-10 GeV. Using isospin conservation, we set the first upper limits on the photoproduction cross sections of the $\pi^{0}_{1}(1600)$ and $\pi^{-}_{1}(1600)$. We combine these limits with lattice calculations of decay widths and find that photoproduction of $\eta'\pi$ is the most sensitive two-body system to search for the $\pi_1(1600)$., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures plus supplemental materials

A supersolid is a counter-intuitive phase of matter where its constituent particles are arranged into a crystalline structure, yet they are free to flow without friction. This requires the particles to share a global macroscopic phase while being able to reduce their total energy by spontaneous, spatial self-organisation. This exotic state of matter has been achieved in different systems using Bose-Einstein condensates coupled to cavities, possessing spin-orbit coupling, or dipolar interactions. Here we provide experimental evidence of a new implementation of the supersolid phase in a novel non-equilibrium context based on exciton-polaritons condensed in a topologically non-trivial, bound-in-the-continuum state with exceptionally low losses. We measure the density modulation of the polaritonic state indicating the breaking of translational symmetry with a remarkable precision of a few parts in a thousand. Direct access to the phase of the wavefunction allows us to additionally measure the local coherence of the superfluid component. We demonstrate the potential of our synthetic photonic material to host phonon dynamics and a multimode excitation spectrum.

Deep Gaussian Processes (DGPs) leverage a compositional structure to model non-stationary processes. DGPs typically rely on local inducing point approximations across intermediate GP layers. Recent advances in DGP inference have shown that incorporating global Fourier features from Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space (RKHS) can enhance the DGPs' capability to capture complex non-stationary patterns. This paper extends the use of these features to compositional GPs involving linear transformations. In particular, we introduce Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) -based RKHS Fourier features that allow for adaptive amplitude and phase modulation through convolution operations. This convolutional formulation relates our work to recently proposed deep latent force models, a multi-layer structure designed for modelling nonlinear dynamical systems. By embedding these adjustable RKHS Fourier features within a doubly stochastic variational inference framework, our model exhibits improved predictive performance across various regression tasks.

We consider electroweak-charged dark matter in an $SO(10)$ unified theory that solves the strong $CP$ problem via Parity. Electroweak-charged dark matter has a colored $SO(10)$ partner, whose mass should be much above the dark matter mass to avoid cosmological problems arising from the decay of the colored partner. The mass hierarchy can be naturally achieved by an $SO(10)\times CP$ symmetry breaking Higgs that has a missing vacuum expectation value. The mass hierarchy, via quantum corrections to the gauge coupling constants, lowers the unification scale and enhances the proton decay rate. Hyper-Kamiokande will probe the parameter space with precise gauge coupling unification. We derive the range of the top quark mass and the strong coupling constant preferred by radiative Parity breaking by the Higgs Parity mechanism., Comment: 32 pages, 8 figures

In recent years, quantum information science has made significant progress, leading to a multitude of quantum protocols for the most diverse applications. States carrying resources such as quantum coherence are a key component for these protocols. In this study, we optimize the quantum coherence of a nonresonantly excited exciton-polariton condensate of long living polaritons by minimizing the condensate's interaction with the surrounding reservoir of excitons and free carriers. By combining experimental phase space data with a displaced thermal state model, we observe how quantum coherence builds up as the system is driven above the condensation threshold. Our findings demonstrate that a spatial separation between the condensate and the reservoir enhances the state's maximum quantum coherence directly beyond the threshold. These insights pave the way for integrating polariton systems into hybrid quantum devices and advancing applications in quantum technologies., Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures

Massive stars that travel at supersonic speeds can create bow shocks as their stellar winds interact with the surrounding interstellar medium. These bow shocks - prominent sites for mechanical feedback of individual massive stars - are predominantly observed in the infrared band. Confirmed high-energy emission from stellar bow shocks has remained elusive and confirmed radio counterparts, while rising in recent years, remain rare. Here, we present an in-depth multi-wavelength exploration of the bow shock driven by LS 2355, focusing on its non-thermal properties. Using the most-recent Fermi source catalogue, we rule out its previously-proposed association with an unidentified $\gamma$-ray source. Furthermore, we use deep ASKAP observations from the Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey and the Evolutionary Map of the Universe survey to identify a non-thermal radio counterpart: the third spectrally confirmed non-thermal bow shock counterpart after BD +43$^{\rm o}$ 3654 and BD +60$^{\rm o}$ 2522. We finally use WISE IR data and Gaia to study the surrounding ISM and update the motion of LS 2355. Specifically, we derive a substantially reduced stellar velocity, $v_* = 7.0\pm2.5$ km/s, compared to previous estimates. The observed non-thermal properties of the bow shock can be explained by an interaction between the wind of LS 2355 and a dense HII region, at a magnetic field close to the maximum magnetic field strength allowed by the compressibility of the ISM. Similar to earlier works, we find that the thermal radio emission of the shocked ISM is likely to be substantially suppressed for it to be consistent with the observed radio spectrum., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Evidence to guide healthcare decisions is often limited by a lack of relevant and trustworthy literature as well as difficulty in contextualizing existing research for a specific patient. Large language models (LLMs) could potentially address both challenges by either summarizing published literature or generating new studies based on real-world data (RWD). We evaluated the ability of five LLM-based systems in answering 50 clinical questions and had nine independent physicians review the responses for relevance, reliability, and actionability. As it stands, general-purpose LLMs (ChatGPT-4, Claude 3 Opus, Gemini Pro 1.5) rarely produced answers that were deemed relevant and evidence-based (2% - 10%). In contrast, retrieval augmented generation (RAG)-based and agentic LLM systems produced relevant and evidence-based answers for 24% (OpenEvidence) to 58% (ChatRWD) of questions. Only the agentic ChatRWD was able to answer novel questions compared to other LLMs (65% vs. 0-9%). These results suggest that while general-purpose LLMs should not be used as-is, a purpose-built system for evidence summarization based on RAG and one for generating novel evidence working synergistically would improve availability of pertinent evidence for patient care., Comment: 28 pages (2 figures, 3 tables) inclusive of 8 pages of supplemental materials (4 supplemental figures and 4 supplemental tables)

Multimodal large language models (MLLMs) have shown impressive success across modalities such as image, video, and audio in a variety of understanding and generation tasks. However, current MLLMs are surprisingly poor at understanding webpage screenshots and generating their corresponding HTML code. To address this problem, we propose $\texttt{Web2Code}$, a benchmark consisting of a new large-scale webpage-to-code dataset for instruction tuning and an evaluation framework for the webpage understanding and HTML code translation abilities of MLLMs. For dataset construction, we leverage pretrained LLMs to enhance existing webpage-to-code datasets as well as generate a diverse pool of new webpages rendered into images. Specifically, the inputs are webpage images and instructions, while the responses are the webpage's HTML code. We further include diverse natural language QA pairs about the webpage content in the responses to enable a more comprehensive understanding of the web content. To evaluate model performance in these tasks, we develop an evaluation framework for testing MLLMs' abilities in webpage understanding and web-to-code generation. Extensive experiments show that our proposed dataset is beneficial not only to our proposed tasks but also in the general visual domain. We hope our work will contribute to the development of general MLLMs suitable for web-based content generation and task automation. Our data and code are available at https://github.com/MBZUAI-LLM/web2code., Comment: NeurIPS 2024 Datasets and Benchmarks Camera-ready Version. Website at https://mbzuai-llm.github.io/webpage2code/

This paper proposes a practical method to monitor power system inertia using Pumped Storage Hydropower (PSH) switching-off events. This approach offers real-time system-level inertia estimation with minimal expenses, no disruption, and the inclusion of behind-the-meter inertia. First, accurate inertia estimation is achieved through improved RoCoF calculation that accounts for pre-event RoCoF, reducing common random frequency fluctuations in practice. Second, PSH field data is analyzed, highlighting the benefits of using switching-off events for grid inertia estimation. Third, an event detection trigger is designed to capture pump switching-off events based on local and system features. Fourth, the method is validated on the U.S. Eastern Interconnection model with over 60,000 buses, demonstrating very high accuracy (3%-5% error rate). Finally, it is applied to the U.S. Western Interconnection, with field validation showing a 9.9% average absolute error rate. Despite challenges in practical power system inertia estimation, this method enhances decision-making for power grid reliability and efficiency, addressing challenges posed by renewable energy integration., Comment: 8 pages, 15 figures

We present multi-frequency (5-345 GHz) and multi-resolution radio observations of 1ES 1927+654, widely considered one of the most unusual and extreme changing-look active galactic nuclei (CL-AGN). The source was first designated a CL-AGN after an optical outburst in late 2017 and has since displayed considerable changes in X-ray emission, including the destruction and rebuilding of the X-ray corona in 2019-2020. Radio observations prior to 2023 show a faint and compact radio source typical of radio-quiet AGN. Starting in February 2023, 1ES 1927+654 began exhibiting a radio flare with a steep exponential rise, reaching a peak 60 times previous flux levels, and has maintained this higher level of radio emission for over a year to date. The 5-23 GHz spectrum is broadly similar to gigahertz-peaked radio sources, which are understood to be young radio jets less than ~1000 years old. Recent high-resolution VLBA observations at 23.5 GHz now show resolved extensions on either side of the core, with a separation of ~0.15 pc, consistent with a new and mildly relativistic bipolar outflow. A steady increase in the soft X-ray band (0.3-2 keV) concurrent with the radio may be consistent with jet-driven shocked gas, though further observations are needed to test alternate scenarios. This source joins a growing number of CL-AGN and tidal disruption events which show late-time radio activity, years after the initial outburst., Comment: Submitted to ApJ Letters 24 June 2024; Accepted 14 October 2024

Bose polarons are mobile impurities dressed by density fluctuations of a surrounding degenerate Bose gas. These many-body objects have been realized in ultracold atomic gasses and become a subject of intensive studies. In this work, we show that excitons in electron-hole bilayers offer new opportunities for exploring polarons in strongly interacting, highly tunable bosonic systems. We found that Bose polarons are formed by spatially direct excitons immersed in degenerate Bose gases of spatially indirect excitons (IXs). We detected both attractive and repulsive Bose polarons by measuring photoluminescence excitation spectra. We controlled the density of IX Bose gas by optical excitation and observed an enhancement of the energy splitting between attractive and repulsive Bose polarons with increasing IX density, in agreement with our theoretical calculations.

Uncertainty quantification (UQ) is a critical component of machine learning (ML) applications. The rapid proliferation of large language models (LLMs) has stimulated researchers to seek efficient and effective approaches to UQ for text generation. As with other ML models, LLMs are prone to making incorrect predictions, in the form of ``hallucinations'' whereby claims are fabricated or low-quality outputs are generated for a given input. UQ is a key element in dealing with these challenges. However, research to date on UQ methods for LLMs has been fragmented, in terms of the literature on UQ techniques and evaluation methods. In this work, we tackle this issue by introducing a novel benchmark that implements a collection of state-of-the-art UQ baselines, and provides an environment for controllable and consistent evaluation of novel UQ techniques over various text generation tasks. Our benchmark also supports the assessment of confidence normalization methods in terms of their ability to provide interpretable scores. Using our benchmark, we conduct a large-scale empirical investigation of UQ and normalization techniques across nine tasks, and identify the most promising approaches. Code: https://github.com/IINemo/lm-polygraph, Comment: Roman Vashurin, Ekaterina Fadeeva, Artem Vazhentsev contributed equally

Asynchronous Bayesian optimization is a recently implemented technique that allows for parallel operation of experimental systems and disjointed workflows. Contrasting with serial Bayesian optimization which individually selects experiments one at a time after conducting a measurement for each experiment, asynchronous policies sequentially assign multiple experiments before measurements can be taken and evaluate new measurements continuously as they are made available. This technique allows for faster data generation and therefore faster optimization of an experimental space. This work extends the capabilities of asynchronous optimization methods beyond prior studies by evaluating four additional policies that incorporate pessimistic predictions in the training data set. Combined with a conventional policy that uses model predictions, the five total policies were evaluated in a simulated environment and benchmarked with serial sampling. Under some conditions and parameter space dimensionalities, the pessimistic prediction asynchronous policy reached optimum experimental conditions in significantly fewer experiments than equivalent serial policies and proved to be less susceptible to convergence onto local optima at higher dimensions. Without accounting for the faster sampling rate, the pessimistic asynchronous algorithm presented in this work could result in more efficient algorithm driven optimization of high-cost experimental spaces. Accounting for sampling rate, the presented asynchronous algorithm could allow for faster optimization in experimental spaces where multiple experiments can be run before results are collected.

Refractory High-Entropy Alloys (RHEAs) hold promising potential to be used as structural materials in future nuclear fusion reactors, where W and its alloys are currently leading candidates. Fusion materials must be able to withstand extreme conditions, such as (i) severe radiation-damage arising from highly-energetic neutrons, (ii) embrittlement caused by implantation of H and He ions, and (iii) exposure to extreme high-temperatures and thermal gradients. Recent research demonstrated that two RHEAs - the WTaCrV and WTaCrVHf - can outperform both coarse-grained and nanocrystalline W in terms of its radiation response and microstructural stability. Chemical complexity and nanocrystallinity enhance the radiation tolerance of these new RHEAs, but their multi-element nature, including low-melting Cr, complicates bulk fabrication and limits practical applications. We demonstrate that reducing the number of alloying elements and yet retain high-radiation tolerance is possible within the ternary system W-Ta-V via synthesis of two novel nanocrystalline refractory medium-entropy alloys (RMEAs): the W$_{53}$Ta$_{44}$V$_{3}$ and W$_{53}$Ta$_{42}$V$_{5}$ (in at.\%). We experimentally show that the radiation response of the W-Ta-V system can be tailored by small additions of V, and such experimental result was validated with theoretical analysis of chemical short-range orders (CSRO) from combined ab-initio atomistic Monte-Carlo modeling. It is predicted from computational analysis that a small change in V concentration has a significant effect on the Ta-V CRSO between W$_{53}$Ta$_{44}$V$_{3}$ and W$_{53}$Ta$_{42}$V$_{5}$ leading to radiation-resistant microstructures in these RMEAs from chemistry stand-point of views. We deviate from the original high-entropy alloy concept to show that high radiation resistance can be achieved in systems with simplified chemical complexity.

We report the canonical properties of Bose-Einstein condensation of polaritons, seen previously in many low-temperature experiments, at room temperature in a GaAs/AlGaAs structure. These effects include a nonlinear energy shift of the polaritons, showing that they are not non-interacting photons, and dramatic line narrowing due to coherence, giving coherent emission with spectral width of 0.24 meV at room temperature with no external stabilization. This opens up the possibility of room temperature nonlinear optical devices based on polariton condensation.

We measure the spin-density matrix elements (SDMEs) of the $\Delta^{++}(1232)$ in the photoproduction reaction $\gamma p \to \pi^-\Delta^{++}(1232)$ with the GlueX experiment in Hall D at Jefferson Lab. The measurement uses a linearly--polarized photon beam with energies from $8.2$ to $8.8$~GeV and the statistical precision of the SDMEs exceeds the previous measurement by three orders of magnitude for the momentum transfer squared region below $1.4$ GeV$^2$. The data are sensitive to the previously undetermined relative sign between couplings in existing Regge-exchange models. Linear combinations of the extracted SDMEs allow for a decomposition into natural and unnatural--exchange amplitudes. We find that the unnatural exchange plays an important role in the low momentum transfer region.

Automated fact-checking systems often struggle with trustworthiness, as their generated explanations can include hallucinations. In this work, we explore evidence attribution for fact-checking explanation generation. We introduce a novel evaluation protocol, citation masking and recovery, to assess attribution quality in generated explanations. We implement our protocol using both human annotators and automatic annotators, and find that LLM annotation correlates with human annotation, suggesting that attribution assessment can be automated. Finally, our experiments reveal that: (1) the best-performing LLMs still generate explanations with inaccurate attributions; and (2) human-curated evidence is essential for generating better explanations. Code and data are available here: https://github.com/ruixing76/Transparent-FCExp.

We present a careful calibration of the exciton fraction of polaritons in high-$Q$ ($\sim 300,000$), long-lifetime ($\sim 300$ ps), GaAs/AlGaAs microcavities.This is a crucial parameter for many-body theories which include the polariton-polariton interactions.It is much harder to establish this number in high-$Q$ structures compared to low-$Q$ structures, because the upper polariton is nearly invisible in high-$Q$ cavities.We present a combination of photoluminescence, photoluminescence excitation, and reflectivity measurements to highly constrain the fit model, and compare the results of this model to the results from low-$Q$ structures.We present a fitted curve of exciton fraction as a function of the lower polariton energy for multiple samples which have been used in prior experiments., Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures

Recently, there has been a growing availability of pre-trained text models on various model repositories. These models greatly reduce the cost of training new models from scratch as they can be fine-tuned for specific tasks or trained on large datasets. However, these datasets may not be publicly accessible due to the privacy, security, or intellectual property issues. In this paper, we aim to develop a lightweight student network that can learn from multiple teacher models without accessing their original training data. Hence, we investigate Data-Free Knowledge Amalgamation (DFKA), a knowledge-transfer task that combines insights from multiple pre-trained teacher models and transfers them effectively to a compact student network. To accomplish this, we propose STRATANET, a modeling framework comprising: (a) a steerable data generator that produces text data tailored to each teacher and (b) an amalgamation module that implements a self-regulative strategy using confidence estimates from the teachers' different layers to selectively integrate their knowledge and train a versatile student. We evaluate our method on three benchmark text classification datasets with varying labels or domains. Empirically, we demonstrate that the student model learned using our STRATANET outperforms several baselines significantly under data-driven and data-free constraints., Comment: 12 pages, 5 Figures, Proceedings of NAACL 2024

A ubiquitous approach to obtain transferable machine learning-based models of potential energy surfaces for atomistic systems is to decompose the total energy into a sum of local atom-centred contributions. However, in many systems non-negligible long-range electrostatic effects must be taken into account as well. We introduce a general mathematical framework to study how such long-range effects can be included in a way that (i) allows charge equilibration and (ii) retains the locality of the learnable atom-centred contributions to ensure transferability. Our results give partial explanations for the success of existing machine learned potentials that include equilibriation and provide perspectives how to design such schemes in a systematic way. To complement the rigorous theoretical results, we describe a practical scheme for fitting the energy and electron density of water clusters., Comment: 33 pages, 1 figure

Empirical evidence for a gap between the computational powers of classical and quantum computers has been provided by experiments that sample the output distributions of two-dimensional quantum circuits. Many attempts to close this gap have utilized classical simulations based on tensor network techniques, and their limitations shed light on the improvements to quantum hardware required to frustrate classical simulability. In particular, quantum computers having in excess of $\sim 50$ qubits are primarily vulnerable to classical simulation due to restrictions on their gate fidelity and their connectivity, the latter determining how many gates are required (and therefore how much infidelity is suffered) in generating highly-entangled states. Here, we describe recent hardware upgrades to Quantinuum's H2 quantum computer enabling it to operate on up to $56$ qubits with arbitrary connectivity and $99.843(5)\%$ two-qubit gate fidelity. Utilizing the flexible connectivity of H2, we present data from random circuit sampling in highly connected geometries, doing so at unprecedented fidelities and a scale that appears to be beyond the capabilities of state-of-the-art classical algorithms. The considerable difficulty of classically simulating H2 is likely limited only by qubit number, demonstrating the promise and scalability of the QCCD architecture as continued progress is made towards building larger machines., Comment: Includes minor updates to the text and an updated author list to include researchers who made technical contributions in upgrading the machine to 56 qubits but were left off the original version by mistake

The A-polynomial of a knot is defined in terms of SL(2,C) representations of the knot group, and encodes information about essential surfaces in the knot complement. In 2005, Dunfield-Garoufalidis and Boyer-Zhang proved that it detects the unknot using Kronheimer-Mrowka's work on the Property P conjecture. Here we use more recent results from instanton Floer homology to prove that a version of the A-polynomial distinguishes torus knots from all other knots, and in particular detects the torus knot T_{a,b} if and only if one of |a| or |b| is $2$ or both are prime powers. These results enable progress towards a folklore conjecture about boundary slopes of non-torus knots. Finally, we use similar ideas to prove that a knot in the 3-sphere admits infinitely many SL(2,C)-abelian Dehn surgeries if and only if it is a torus knot, affirming a variant of a conjecture due to Sivek-Zentner., Comment: 21 pages