Search

In the context of blockchain, MEV refers to the maximum value that can be extracted from block production through the inclusion, exclusion, or reordering of transactions. Searchers often participate in order flow auctions (OFAs) to obtain exclusive rights to private transactions, available through entities called matchmakers, also known as order flow providers (OFPs). Most often, redistributing the revenue generated through such auctions among transaction creators is desirable. In this work, we formally introduce the matchmaking problem in MEV, its desirable properties, and associated challenges. Using cooperative game theory, we formalize the notion of fair revenue redistribution in matchmaking and present its potential possibilities and impossibilities. Precisely, we define a characteristic form game, referred to as RST-Game, for the transaction creators. We propose to redistribute the revenue using the Shapley value of RST-Game. We show that the corresponding problem could be SUBEXP (i.e. $2^{o(n)}$, where $n$ is the number of transactions); therefore, approximating the Shapley value is necessary. Further, we propose a randomized algorithm for computing the Shapley value in RST-Game and empirically verify its efficacy.

The frequency of extreme flood events is increasing throughout the world. Daily, high-resolution (30m) Flood Inundation Maps (FIM) observed from space play a key role in informing mitigation and preparedness efforts to counter these extreme events. However, the temporal frequency of publicly available high-resolution FIMs, e.g., from Landsat, is at the order of two weeks thus limiting the effective monitoring of flood inundation dynamics. Conversely, global, low-resolution (~300m) Water Fraction Maps (WFM) are publicly available from NOAA VIIRS daily. Motivated by the recent successes of deep learning methods for single image super-resolution, we explore the effectiveness and limitations of similar data-driven approaches to downscaling low-resolution WFMs to high-resolution FIMs. To overcome the scarcity of high-resolution FIMs, we train our models with high-quality synthetic data obtained through physics-based simulations. We evaluate our models on real-world data from flood events in the state of Iowa. The study indicates that data-driven approaches exhibit superior reconstruction accuracy over non-data-driven alternatives and that the use of synthetic data is a viable proxy for training purposes. Additionally, we show that our trained models can exhibit superior zero-shot performance when transferred to regions with hydroclimatological similarity to the U.S. Midwest., Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables

The growing need for scalable, maintainable, and fast-deploying systems has made microservice architecture widely popular in software development. This paper presents a system that uses Large Language Models (LLMs) to automate the API-first development of RESTful microservices. This system assists in creating OpenAPI specification, generating server code from it, and refining the code through a feedback loop that analyzes execution logs and error messages. By focusing on the API-first methodology, this system ensures that microservices are designed with well-defined interfaces, promoting consistency and reliability across the development life-cycle. The integration of log analysis enables the LLM to detect and address issues efficiently, reducing the number of iterations required to produce functional and robust services. This process automates the generation of microservices and also simplifies the debugging and refinement phases, allowing developers to focus on higher-level design and integration tasks. This system has the potential to benefit software developers, architects, and organizations to speed up software development cycles and reducing manual effort. To assess the potential of the system, we conducted surveys with six industry practitioners. After surveying practitioners, the system demonstrated notable advantages in enhancing development speed, automating repetitive tasks, and simplifying the prototyping process. While experienced developers appreciated its efficiency for specific tasks, some expressed concerns about its limitations in handling advanced customizations and larger scale projects. The code is publicly available at https://github.com/sirbh/code-gen

The primary objective of this study is to demonstrate the impact of data augmentation using ChatGPT-4o-mini on food hazard and product analysis. The augmented data is generated using ChatGPT-4o-mini and subsequently used to train two large language models: RoBERTa-base and Flan-T5-base. The models are evaluated on test sets. The results indicate that using augmented data helped improve model performance across key metrics, including recall, F1 score, precision, and accuracy, compared to using only the provided dataset. The full code, including model training and the augmented dataset, can be found in this repository: https://github.com/AREEG94FAHAD/food-hazard-prdouct-cls

We present a large language models (LLMs) based multi-agent system to automate the refactoring of Haskell codebases. The multi-agent system consists of specialized agents performing tasks such as context analysis, refactoring, validation, and testing. Refactoring improvements are using metrics such as cyclomatic complexity, run-time, and memory allocation. Experimental evaluations conducted on Haskell codebases demonstrate improvements in code quality. Cyclomatic complexity was reduced by 13.64% and 47.06% in the respective codebases. Memory allocation improved by 4.17% and 41.73%, while runtime efficiency increased by up to 50%. These metrics highlight the systems ability to optimize Haskells functional paradigms while maintaining correctness and scalability. Results show reductions in complexity and performance enhancements across codebases. The integration of LLMs based multi-agent system enables precise task execution and inter-agent collaboration, addressing the challenges of refactoring in functional programming. This approach aims to address the challenges of refactoring functional programming languages through distributed and modular systems.

This paper studies the lattice agreement problem and proposes a stronger form, $\varepsilon$-bounded lattice agreement, that enforces an additional tightness constraint on the outputs. To formalize the concept, we define a quasi-metric on the structure of the lattice, which captures a natural notion of distance between lattice elements. We consider the bounded lattice agreement problem in both synchronous and asynchronous systems, and provide algorithms that aim to minimize the distance between the output values, while satisfying the requirements of the classic lattice agreement problem. We show strong impossibility results for the asynchronous case, and a heuristic algorithm that achieves improved tightness with high probability, and we test an approximation of this algorithm to show that only a very small number of rounds are necessary.

The use of Large Language Models (LLMs) for autonomous code generation is gaining attention in emerging technologies. As LLM capabilities expand, they offer new possibilities such as code refactoring, security enhancements, and legacy application upgrades. Many outdated web applications pose security and reliability challenges, yet companies continue using them due to the complexity and cost of upgrades. To address this, we propose an LLM-based multi-agent system that autonomously upgrades legacy web applications to the latest versions. The system distributes tasks across multiple phases, updating all relevant files. To evaluate its effectiveness, we employed Zero-Shot Learning (ZSL) and One-Shot Learning (OSL) prompts, applying identical instructions in both cases. The evaluation involved updating view files and measuring the number and types of errors in the output. For complex tasks, we counted the successfully met requirements. The experiments compared the proposed system with standalone LLM execution, repeated multiple times to account for stochastic behavior. Results indicate that our system maintains context across tasks and agents, improving solution quality over the base model in some cases. This study provides a foundation for future model implementations in legacy code updates. Additionally, findings highlight LLMs' ability to update small outdated files with high precision, even with basic prompts. The source code is publicly available on GitHub: https://github.com/alasalm1/Multi-agent-pipeline., Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures

Large Language Models (LLMs) have emerged as coding assistants, capable of generating source code from natural language prompts. With the increasing adoption of LLMs in software development, academic research and industry based projects are developing various tools, benchmarks, and metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of LLM-generated code. However, there is a lack of solutions evaluated through empirically grounded methods that incorporate practitioners perspectives to assess functionality, syntax, and accuracy in real world applications. To address this gap, we propose and develop a multi-model unified platform to generate and execute code based on natural language prompts. We conducted a survey with 60 software practitioners from 11 countries across four continents working in diverse professional roles and domains to evaluate the usability, performance, strengths, and limitations of each model. The results present practitioners feedback and insights into the use of LLMs in software development, including their strengths and weaknesses, key aspects overlooked by benchmarks and metrics, and a broader understanding of their practical applicability. These findings can help researchers and practitioners make informed decisions for systematically selecting and using LLMs in software development projects. Future research will focus on integrating more diverse models into the proposed system, incorporating additional case studies, and conducting developer interviews for deeper empirical insights into LLM-driven software development., Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

Flaky tests pose a significant issue for software testing. A test with a non-deterministic outcome may undermine the reliability of the testing process, making tests untrustworthy. Previous research has identified test order dependency as one of the most prevalent causes of flakiness, particularly in Java and Python. However, little is known about test order dependency in JavaScript tests. This paper aims to investigate test order dependency in JavaScript projects that use Jest, a widely used JavaScript testing framework. We implemented a systematic approach to randomise tests, test suites and describe blocks and produced 10 unique test reorders for each level. We reran each order 10 times (100 reruns for each test suite/project) and recorded any changes in test outcomes. We then manually analysed each case that showed flaky outcomes to determine the cause of flakiness. We examined our detection approach on a dataset of 81 projects obtained from GitHub. Our results revealed 55 order-dependent tests across 10 projects. Most order-dependent tests (52) occurred between tests, while the remaining three occurred between describe blocks. Those order-dependent tests are caused by either shared files (13) or shared mocking state (42) between tests. While sharing files is a known cause of order-dependent tests in other languages, our results underline a new cause (shared mocking state) that was not reported previously, Comment: Paper accepted at ICST 2025

While learning personalization offers great potential for learners, modern practices in higher education require a deeper consideration of domain models and learning contexts, to develop effective personalization algorithms. This paper introduces an innovative approach to higher education curriculum modelling that utilizes large language models (LLMs) for knowledge graph (KG) completion, with the goal of creating personalized learning-path recommendations. Our research focuses on modelling university subjects and linking their topics to corresponding domain models, enabling the integration of learning modules from different faculties and institutions in the student's learning path. Central to our approach is a collaborative process, where LLMs assist human experts in extracting high-quality, fine-grained topics from lecture materials. We develop a domain, curriculum, and user models for university modules and stakeholders. We implement this model to create the KG from two study modules: Embedded Systems and Development of Embedded Systems Using FPGA. The resulting KG structures the curriculum and links it to the domain models. We evaluate our approach through qualitative expert feedback and quantitative graph quality metrics. Domain experts validated the relevance and accuracy of the model, while the graph quality metrics measured the structural properties of our KG. Our results show that the LLM-assisted graph completion approach enhances the ability to connect related courses across disciplines to personalize the learning experience. Expert feedback also showed high acceptance of the proposed collaborative approach for concept extraction and classification., Comment: Accepted in the IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON2025), London, UK, 22-25 April, 2025

The objective of this research is to optimize the eleventh iteration of You Only Look Once (YOLOv11) by developing size-specific modified versions of the architecture. These modifications involve pruning unnecessary layers and reconfiguring the main architecture of YOLOv11. Each proposed version is tailored to detect objects of specific size ranges, from small to large. To ensure proper model selection based on dataset characteristics, we introduced an object classifier program. This program identifies the most suitable modified version for a given dataset. The proposed models were evaluated on various datasets and compared with the original YOLOv11 and YOLOv8 models. The experimental results highlight significant improvements in computational resource efficiency, with the proposed models maintaining the accuracy of the original YOLOv11. In some cases, the modified versions outperformed the original model regarding detection performance. Furthermore, the proposed models demonstrated reduced model sizes and faster inference times. Models weights and the object size classifier can be found in this repository, Comment: 12 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables

Present-day software development faces three major challenges: complexity, time consumption, and high costs. Developing large software systems often requires battalions of teams and considerable time for meetings, which end without any action, resulting in unproductive cycles, delayed progress, and increased cost. What if, instead of large meetings with no immediate results, the software product is completed by the end of the meeting? In response, we present a vision for a system called TimeLess, designed to reshape the software development process by enabling immediate action during meetings. The goal is to shift meetings from planning discussions to productive, action-oriented sessions. This approach minimizes the time and effort required for development, allowing teams to focus on critical decision-making while AI agents execute development tasks based on the meeting discussions. We will employ multiple AI agents that work collaboratively to capture human discussions and execute development tasks in real time. This represents a step toward next-generation software development environments, where human expertise drives strategy and AI accelerates task execution., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure, and 1 table

This paper explores the development and practical application of a predictive digital twin specifically designed for condition monitoring, using advanced mathematical models and thermal imaging techniques. Our work presents a comprehensive approach to integrating Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD), Robust Principal Component Analysis (RPCA), and Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) to establish a robust predictive digital twin framework. We employ these methods in a real-time experimental setup involving a heated plate monitored through thermal imaging. This system effectively demonstrates the digital twin's capabilities in real-time predictions, condition monitoring, and anomaly detection. Additionally, we introduce the use of a human-machine interface that includes virtual reality, enhancing user interaction and system understanding. The primary contributions of our research lie in the demonstration of these advanced techniques in a tangible setup, showcasing the potential of digital twins to transform industry practices by enabling more proactive and strategic asset management.

Autonomous surface vessels (ASVs) are becoming increasingly significant in enhancing the safety and sustainability of maritime operations. To ensure the reliability of modern control algorithms utilized in these vessels, digital twins (DTs) provide a robust framework for conducting safe and effective simulations within a virtual environment. Digital twins are generally classified on a scale from 0 to 5, with each level representing a progression in complexity and functionality: Level 0 (Standalone) employs offline modeling techniques; Level 1 (Descriptive) integrates sensors and online modeling to enhance situational awareness; Level 2 (Diagnostic) focuses on condition monitoring and cybersecurity; Level 3 (Predictive) incorporates predictive analytics; Level 4 (Prescriptive) embeds decision-support systems; and Level 5 (Autonomous) enables advanced functionalities such as collision avoidance and path following. These digital representations not only provide insights into the vessel's current state and operational efficiency but also predict future scenarios and assess life endurance. By continuously updating with real-time sensor data, the digital twin effectively corrects modeling errors and enhances decision-making processes. Since DTs are key enablers for complex autonomous systems, this paper introduces a comprehensive methodology for establishing a digital twin framework specifically tailored for ASVs. Through a detailed literature survey, we explore existing state-of-the-art enablers across the defined levels, offering valuable recommendations for future research and development in this rapidly evolving field.

Disruptions to medical infrastructure during disasters pose significant risks to critically ill patients with advanced chronic kidney disease or end-stage renal disease. To enhance patient access to dialysis treatment under such conditions, it is crucial to assess the vulnerabilities of critical care facilities to hazardous events. This study proposes optimization models for patient reallocation and the strategic placement of temporary medical facilities to bolster the resilience of the critical care system, with a focus on equitable outcomes. Utilizing human mobility data from Texas, we evaluate patient access to critical care and dialysis centers under simulated hazard scenarios. The proposed bio-inspired optimization model, based on the Ant Colony optimization method, efficiently reallocates patients to mitigate disrupted access to dialysis facilities. The model outputs offer valuable insights into patient and hospital preparedness for disasters. Overall, the study presents a data-driven, analytics-based decision support tool designed to proactively mitigate potential disruptions in access to critical care facilities during disasters, tailored to the needs of health officials, emergency managers, and hospital system administrators in both the private and public sectors.

Existing methods for anomaly detection often fall short due to their inability to handle the complexity, heterogeneity, and high dimensionality inherent in real-world mobility data. In this paper, we propose DeepBayesic, a novel framework that integrates Bayesian principles with deep neural networks to model the underlying multivariate distributions from sparse and complex datasets. Unlike traditional models, DeepBayesic is designed to manage heterogeneous inputs, accommodating both continuous and categorical data to provide a more comprehensive understanding of mobility patterns. The framework features customized neural density estimators and hybrid architectures, allowing for flexibility in modeling diverse feature distributions and enabling the use of specialized neural networks tailored to different data types. Our approach also leverages agent embeddings for personalized anomaly detection, enhancing its ability to distinguish between normal and anomalous behaviors for individual agents. We evaluate our approach on several mobility datasets, demonstrating significant improvements over state-of-the-art anomaly detection methods. Our results indicate that incorporating personalization and advanced sequence modeling techniques can substantially enhance the ability to detect subtle and complex anomalies in spatiotemporal event sequences., Comment: 12 pages

This paper addresses the challenge of classifying and assigning programming tasks to experts, a process that typically requires significant effort, time, and cost. To tackle this issue, a novel dataset containing a total of 4,112 programming tasks was created by extracting tasks from various websites. Web scraping techniques were employed to collect this dataset of programming problems systematically. Specific HTML tags were tracked to extract key elements of each issue, including the title, problem description, input-output, examples, problem class, and complexity score. Examples from the dataset are provided in the appendix to illustrate the variety and complexity of tasks included. The dataset's effectiveness has been evaluated and benchmarked using two approaches; the first approach involved fine-tuning the FLAN-T5 small model on the dataset, while the second approach used in-context learning (ICL) with the GPT-4o mini. The performance was assessed using standard metrics: accuracy, recall, precision, and F1-score. The results indicated that in-context learning with GPT-4o-mini outperformed the FLAN-T5 model., Comment: This papaer has been accepted to The 3nd International conference on Machine Learning and Data Engineering (ICMLDE 2024)

We present in this paper a novel approach for 3D/2D intraoperative registration during neurosurgery via cross-modal inverse neural rendering. Our approach separates implicit neural representation into two components, handling anatomical structure preoperatively and appearance intraoperatively. This disentanglement is achieved by controlling a Neural Radiance Field's appearance with a multi-style hypernetwork. Once trained, the implicit neural representation serves as a differentiable rendering engine, which can be used to estimate the surgical camera pose by minimizing the dissimilarity between its rendered images and the target intraoperative image. We tested our method on retrospective patients' data from clinical cases, showing that our method outperforms state-of-the-art while meeting current clinical standards for registration. Code and additional resources can be found at https://maxfehrentz.github.io/style-ngp/., Comment: Accepted at MICCAI 2024

We propose in this paper a texture-invariant 2D keypoints descriptor specifically designed for matching preoperative Magnetic Resonance (MR) images with intraoperative Ultrasound (US) images. We introduce a matching-by-synthesis strategy, where intraoperative US images are synthesized from MR images accounting for multiple MR modalities and intraoperative US variability. We build our training set by enforcing keypoints localization over all images then train a patient-specific descriptor network that learns texture-invariant discriminant features in a supervised contrastive manner, leading to robust keypoints descriptors. Our experiments on real cases with ground truth show the effectiveness of the proposed approach, outperforming the state-of-the-art methods and achieving 80.35% matching precision on average., Comment: Accepted for publication at the International Workshop of Advances in Simplifying Medical UltraSound (ASMUS) at MICCAI 2024

This paper presents a nested tracking framework for analyzing cycles in 2D force networks within granular materials. These materials are composed of interacting particles, whose interactions are described by a force network. Understanding the cycles within these networks at various scales and their evolution under external loads is crucial, as they significantly contribute to the mechanical and kinematic properties of the system. Our approach involves computing a cycle hierarchy by partitioning the 2D domain into segments bounded by cycles in the force network. We can adapt concepts from nested tracking graphs originally developed for merge trees by leveraging the duality between this partitioning and the cycles. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method on two force networks derived from experiments with photoelastic disks., Comment: TopoInVis 2024, 11 pages

Requirements Engineering (RE) plays a pivotal role in software development, encompassing tasks such as requirements elicitation, analysis, specification, and change management. Despite its critical importance, RE faces challenges including communication complexities, early-stage uncertainties, and accurate resource estimation. This study empirically investigates the effectiveness of utilizing Large Language Models (LLMs) to automate requirements analysis tasks. We implemented a multi-agent system that deploys AI models as agents to generate user stories from initial requirements, assess and improve their quality, and prioritize them using a selected technique. In our implementation, we deployed four models, namely GPT-3.5, GPT-4 Omni, LLaMA3-70, and Mixtral-8B, and conducted experiments to analyze requirements on four real-world projects. We evaluated the results by analyzing the semantic similarity and API performance of different models, as well as their effectiveness and efficiency in requirements analysis, gathering users' feedback on their experiences. Preliminary results indicate notable variations in task completion among the models. Mixtral-8B provided the quickest responses, while GPT-3.5 performed exceptionally well when processing complex user stories with a higher similarity score, demonstrating its capability in deriving accurate user stories from project descriptions. Feedback and suggestions from the four project members further corroborate the effectiveness of LLMs in improving and streamlining RE phases.

Federated Learning (FL) is a privacy-enhancing technology for distributed ML. By training models locally and aggregating updates - a federation learns together, while bypassing centralised data collection. FL is increasingly popular in healthcare, finance and personal computing. However, it inherits fairness challenges from classical ML and introduces new ones, resulting from differences in data quality, client participation, communication constraints, aggregation methods and underlying hardware. Fairness remains an unresolved issue in FL and the community has identified an absence of succinct definitions and metrics to quantify fairness; to address this, we propose Federated Fairness Analytics - a methodology for measuring fairness. Our definition of fairness comprises four notions with novel, corresponding metrics. They are symptomatically defined and leverage techniques originating from XAI, cooperative game-theory and networking engineering. We tested a range of experimental settings, varying the FL approach, ML task and data settings. The results show that statistical heterogeneity and client participation affect fairness and fairness conscious approaches such as Ditto and q-FedAvg marginally improve fairness-performance trade-offs. Using our techniques, FL practitioners can uncover previously unobtainable insights into their system's fairness, at differing levels of granularity in order to address fairness challenges in FL. We have open-sourced our work at: https://github.com/oscardilley/federated-fairness.

In the field of Image Quality Assessment (IQA), the adversarial robustness of the metrics poses a critical concern. This paper presents a comprehensive benchmarking study of various defense mechanisms in response to the rise in adversarial attacks on IQA. We systematically evaluate 25 defense strategies, including adversarial purification, adversarial training, and certified robustness methods. We applied 14 adversarial attack algorithms of various types in both non-adaptive and adaptive settings and tested these defenses against them. We analyze the differences between defenses and their applicability to IQA tasks, considering that they should preserve IQA scores and image quality. The proposed benchmark aims to guide future developments and accepts submissions of new methods, with the latest results available online: https://videoprocessing.ai/benchmarks/iqa-defenses.html.