Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have received increasing attention due to their ability to handle graph-structured data, yet their explainability remains a significant challenge. An effective solution is to provide the GNN models with counterfactual explanations, which aim to answer “How should the input instance be perturbed to change the model's prediction?". However, existing works mainly focus on generating explanations that can effectively alter model predictions, while neglecting whether the explanations remain aligned with the original data distribution, leading to the distribution shift problem. To address this problem, we propose a novel method called ICExplainer for generating explanations within the original distribution. Specifically, we introduce graph diffusion-based generative model into the counterfactual reasoning, treating it as an optimization objective for graph distribution learning. Taking insights from variational inference, we use it to estimate the true distribution of the input graphs to retain essential structural and semantic information. The inferred distribution is then utilized as prior knowledge to guide the reverse process, ensuring that generated explanations are both counterfactual and distributionally coherent. Extensive experiments conducted on both synthetic and real-world datasets demonstrate the superior performance of ICExplainer over existing methods.

Learning path recommendation seeks to provide students with a structured sequence of learning items (e.g., knowledge concepts or exercises) to optimize their learning efficiency. Despite significant efforts in this area, most existing methods primarily rely on prerequisite relations, which present two major limitations: (1) Prerequisite relations between knowledge concepts are difficult to obtain due to the cost of expert annotation, hindering the application of current learning path recommendation methods. (2) Relying on a single sequentially dependent knowledge structure based on prerequisite relations implies that a confusing knowledge concept can disrupt subsequent learning processes, which is referred to as blocked learning. To address these two challenges, we propose a novel approach, GraphRAG-Induced Dual Knowledge Structure Graphs for Personalized Learning Path Recommendation (KnowLP), which enhances learning path recommendations by incorporating both prerequisite and similarity relations between knowledge concepts. Specifically, we introduce a knowledge structure graph generation module EDU-GraphRAG that constructs knowledge structure graphs for different educational datasets, significantly improving the applicability of learning path recommendation methods. We then propose a Discrimination Learning-driven Reinforcement Learning (DLRL) module that utilizes similarity relations as fallback relations when prerequisite relations become ineffective, thereby alleviating the blocked learning. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments on three benchmark datasets, demonstrating that our method not only achieves state-of-the-art performance but also generates more effective and longer learning paths.

Large Vision--Language Models (LVLMs) frequently fail on knowledge-intensive educational video QA despite the presence of requisite visual evidence. Through region-level analysis, we identify a systematic evidence-suppression pattern: task-critical tokens (e.g., diagrams) exhibit lower representational energy than distractors at the encoder output, rendering them prone to persistent attention neglect during decoding. While a controlled study shows that performance is sensitive to the strength and amount of injected candidate evidence signals, we find that rigid heuristics are insufficient due to sensitivity to token quality. To address this, we propose Bi-level Active Evidence Injection (BAEI), a decoding-time intervention that keeps the LVLM backbone frozen. BAEI employs a lightweight Injection Policy Network (IPN), optimized via GRPO, to dynamically select candidate evidence tokens and predict their token-wise injection strengths. The framework operates on two levels: increasing the contribution of candidate evidence-related signals in shallow layers and performing adaptive correction in deep layers triggered by predictive entropy. Experiments on educational benchmarks demonstrate consistent gains, validating decoding-time evidence intervention as an effective solution for factual alignment. The code is available at https://github.com/diojojolc-cell/BAEI.

Abstraction is an important and useful concept in the field of artificial intelligence. To the best of our knowledge, there is no syntactic method to compute a sound and complete abstraction from a given low-level basic action theory and a refinement mapping. This paper aims to address this issue. To this end, we first present a variant of situation calculus, namely linear integer situation calculus, which serves as the formalization of high-level basic action theory. We then migrate Banihashemi, De Giacomo, and Lesperance’s abstraction framework to one from linear integer situation calculus to extended situation calculus. Furthermore, we identify a class of Golog programs, namely guarded actions, so as to restrict low-level Golog programs, and impose some restrictions on refinement mappings. Finally, we design a syntactic approach to computing a sound and complete abstraction from a low-level basic action theory and a restricted refinement mapping.

With the rapid growth of online education, the types and volumes of educational resources have increased significantly. Efficient classification of these resources can substantially reduce manual workload and enhance management effectiveness. However, existing models often struggle to accurately classify long-content educational content, particularly under imbalanced category distributions. To address these challenges, we propose PERC, a prior-guided framework for classifying long educational resources with imbalanced categories. To the best of our knowledge, PERC is the first framework to incorporate the foundational cognitive dimensions of Bloom's Taxonomy into educational resource classification. First, PERC leverages standardized pedagogical classification guidelines and maps the original label space into a semantically structured prior category space using a Structured State-Space Learning framework. Second, to handle the length and high information density of educational texts, we introduce a Dynamic Sliding Window Attention mechanism that captures both local and partial global dependencies, enabling the extraction of compact, semantically rich representations. Finally, a category-aware classifier integrates the prior representation of each category with the semantic representation of the resource to produce a category-aware embedding for final prediction. To evaluate PERC, we constructed two datasets: EduMix-24 and EduMath-24, comprising 18,799 educational resources manually annotated across 9 lesson types, 15 teaching modes, and 9 activity elements. Classification experiments on all three tasks consistently demonstrate that PERC outperforms state-of-the-art baselines.

The knowledge tracing (KT) model based on deep learning has been proven to be superior to the traditional knowledge tracing model, eliminating the need for artificial engineering features. However, there are still problems, such as insufficient interpretability of the learning and answering processes. To address these issues, we propose a new approach in knowledge tracing with attention-based embedding and forgetting curve integration, namely KVFKT. Firstly, the embedding representation module is responsible for embedding the questions and computing the attention vector of knowledge concepts (KCs) when students answer questions and when answer time stamps are collected. Secondly, the forgetting quantification module performs the pre-prediction update of the student’s knowledge state matrix. This quantification involves calculating the interval time and associated forgetting rate of relevant KCs, following the forgetting curve. Thirdly, the answer prediction module generates responses based on students’ knowledge status, guess coefficient, and question difficulty. Finally, the knowledge status update module further refines the students’ knowledge status according to their answers to the questions and the characteristics of those questions. In the experiment, four real-world datasets are used to test the model. Experimental results show that KVFKT better traces students’ knowledge state and outperforms state-of-the-art models.

Contrastive Language-Image Pre-training (CLIP) models as a milestone of modern multimodal intelligence, its gener-alization mechanism grasped massive research interests in the community. While existing studies limited in the scope of pre-training knowledge, hardly underpinned its generalization to countless open-world concepts absent from the pre-training regime. This paper dives into such Out-of-Pre-training (OOP) generalization problem from a holistic perspective. We propose LAION-Beyond benchmark to isolate the evaluation of OOP concepts from pre-training knowledge, with regards to OpenCLIP and its reproducible variants derived from LAION datasets. Empirical analysis evidences that despite image features of OOP concepts born with significant category margins, their zero-shot transfer significantly fails due to the poor image-text alignment. To this, we elaborate the "name-tuning" methodology with its theoretical merits in terms of OOP generalization, then propose few-shot name learning (FSNL) and zero-shot name learning (ZSNL) algorithms to achieve OOP generalization in a data-efficient manner. LAION-Beyond dataset and codes: http://m-huangx.github.io/laion_beyond/.

Conformant planning is a computationally challenging task that generates an action sequence to achieve goal condition with uncertain initial states and non-deterministic actions. The generate-and-complete (in short, GC) approach shows superior performance on conformant planning, which iteratively enumerates the solution of a planning subproblem for a single initial state and attempts to extend it for all initial states until a conform solution is found. However, two major drawbacks of the GC approach hinder its performance: the computational overhead due to state exploration and the insertion of many redundant actions. To overcome the above drawbacks, we improve both verification and completion procedures. Experimental results show that the improved GC planner has significant improvements over the original GC approach in many instances with a large number of initial states. Our approach also outperforms all of state-of-the-art planners, solving 989 instances in comparison to 784, which is the most solved by DNF.

This study addresses the challenge of multi-robot cooperative exploration under limited local observations in environments with dynamic robot populations. To achieve efficient area coverage within constrained timeframes, we propose the Multi-Robot Informative Planner (MIP), a novel reinforcement learning (RL)-based planning module. The core component of MIP is the Neighborhood Information Aggregator, which employs a graph neural network (GNN) to integrate local neighborhood information for each robot. Our design enhances sample efficiency by minimizing information requirements while ensuring scalability across environments with varying robot numbers. To generate high-quality, expressive neighborhood feature representations, we utilize Graphical Mutual Information (GMI) to maximize the correlation between neighboring robots’ input features and their high-level hidden representations. Furthermore, MIP incorporates the Spatial-Neighborhood Transformer, which captures spatial features and inter-robot interactions through spatial self-attention mechanisms. These components collectively form the Multi-Robot Neural Informative Mapping (MRNIM) framework, outperforming traditional benchmarks in Habitat simulator.

The increasing realism of synthetic images generated by advanced models such as VAEs, GANs, and LDMs poses significant challenges for synthetic image detection. To address this issue, we explore two artifact types introduced during the generation process: (1) latent distribution deviations and (2) decoding-induced smoothing effects, which manifest as inconsistencies in local textures, edges, and color transitions. Leveraging local pixel dependencies (LPD) properties rooted in Markov Random Fields, we reconstruct synthetic images using neighboring pixel information to expose disruptions in texture continuity and edge coherence. Building upon LPD, we propose FerretNet, a lightweight neural network with only 1.1M parameters that delivers efficient and robust synthetic image detection. Extensive experiments demonstrate that FerretNet—trained exclusively on the 4-class ProGAN dataset—achieves an average accuracy of 97.1% on an open-world benchmark comprising 22 generative models. Our code and datasets are publicly available at https://github.com/xigua7105/FerretNet.

With the widespread adoption of online education platforms, an increasing number of students are gaining new knowledge through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Exercise recommendation have made strides toward improving student learning outcomes. However, existing methods not only struggle with high dropout rates but also fail to match the diverse learning pace of students. They frequently face difficulties in adjusting to inactive students' learning patterns and in accommodating individualized learning paces, resulting in limited accuracy and diversity in recommendations. To tackle these challenges, we propose Neural Re-ranking for Diversified Exercise Recommendation (in short, NR4DER). NR4DER first leverages the mLSTM model to improve the effectiveness of the exercise filter module. It then employs a sequence enhancement method to enhance the representation of inactive students, accurately matches students with exercises of appropriate difficulty. Finally, it utilizes neural re-ranking to generate diverse recommendation lists based on individual students' learning histories. Extensive experimental results indicate that NR4DER significantly outperforms existing methods across multiple real-world datasets and effectively caters to the diverse learning pace of students.

Dynamic link prediction (DLP) is a crucial task in graph learning, aiming to predict future links between nodes at subsequent time in dynamic graphs. Recently, graph masked autoencoders (GMAEs) have shown promising performance in self-supervised learning. However, their application to DLP is under-explored. Existing GMAEs struggle to capture temporal dependencies, and their random masking causes crucial information loss for DLP. Moreover, most existing DLP methods rely on local information, ignoring global information and failing to capture complex features in real-world dynamic graphs. To address these issues, we propose DyGMAE, a novel dynamic GMAE method specifically designed for DLP. DyGMAE introduces a Multi-Scale Masking Strategy (MSMS), which generates multiple graph views by masking parts of the edges and tries to reconstruct them. Additionally, a multi-scale masking representation alignment module with a contrastive learning objective is employed to align representations which are encoded by unmasked edges across these views. Through this design, different masked views can provide diverse information to alleviate the drawbacks of random masking, and contrastive learning can align different views to mitigate the problem of exploiting local and global information simultaneously. Experiments on benchmark datasets show DyGMAE achieves superior performance in the DLP task.

With the continuous development of vehicular networks, the security of in-vehicle data is receiving more and more attention. Different from traditional cryptographic techniques, the solution of physical layer security offers the advantages of lower algorithmic complexity and reduced computational demands on devices. This paper addresses the issue of resource allocation for vehicular networks in the presence of eavesdroppers. We formulate the joint optimization problem of power control and spectrum allocation under the quality of service requirements for vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) links with high capacity and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) links with low latency while ensuring the security of V2V transmission. To cope with the fast-changing channel state information in the high-mobility vehicular scenario, the optimization problem is transformed into a Markov decision process and solved by a multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradients (MADDPG) based deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithm. Simulation results show that the proposed MADDPG-based algorithm can effectively ensure high capacity of V2I links while ensuring the low latency of V2V secure transmission.

Intrusion detection is crucial for safeguarding intelligent vehicle systems, aiming to identify abnormal network traffic and operational anomalies. Traditional methods primarily focus on spatial features of attacks, often neglecting temporal dynamics essential for detecting complex, evolving threats. Additionally, the effectiveness of existing techniques is limited by the scope and quality of available datasets, reducing their ability to detect novel, unseen attacks. To address these challenges, this article introduces a Transformer-based transfer learning intrusion detection system (TIDS), designed to capture and analyze spatiotemporal sequence features from vehicle data. TIDS generates high-dimensional feature representations of intricate intrusion patterns, improving the detection of known attack types through instance-based transfer learning, enhancing domain adaptability. Moreover, we proposed a novel self-supervised box classification method that enhances the system’s capability to detect previously unknown attacks, thereby increasing the overall robustness of the intrusion detection process. Comparative experiments demonstrate that TIDS outperforms traditional methods in detection speed and accuracy across various intrusion scenarios, effectively responding to emerging threats in intelligent vehicle networks.

Recommending suitable exercises and providing the reasons for these recommendations is a highly valuable task, as it can significantly improve students' learning efficiency. Nevertheless, the extensive range of exercise resources and the diverse learning capacities of students present a notable difficulty in recommending exercises. Collaborative filtering approaches frequently have difficulties in recommending suitable exercises, whereas deep learning methods lack explanation, which restricts their practical use. To address these issue, this paper proposes KG4EER, an explainable exercise recommendation with a knowledge graph. KG4EER facilitates the matching of various students with suitable exercises and offers explanations for its recommendations. More precisely, a feature extraction module is introduced to represent students' learning features, and a knowledge graph is constructed to recommend exercises. This knowledge graph, which includes three primary entities - knowledge concepts, students, and exercises - and their interrelationships, serves to recommend suitable exercises. Extensive experiments conducted on three real-world datasets, coupled with expert interviews, establish the superiority of KG4EER over existing baseline methods and underscore its robust explainability.

Vehicular edge computing (VEC) is an efficient solution to alleviate the limitations of local computing resources in vehicular networks. However, the high mobility of vehicles and the dynamic variability of network topologies make it significantly challengeable. In this work, we make a fusion of model-driven and data-driven intelligence to design a multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (DRL) solution for task offloading in urban VEC networks. First, computational models for task queue, transmission, computation, energy consumption, and expense are meticulously developed for the VEC network that integrates communication and computation. Vehicular tasks vary in type, urgency, size, and timeframe, leading to different latency requirements. Tasks may be executed locally within the vehicle, at a server after V2I offloading via cellular communications, or in a neighboring vehicle after V2V offloading via millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications. Each of these options incurs different levels of latency, energy consumption, and expense. Second, based on these models and the utility function that combines latency, energy consumption, and expense, an optimization problem for task offloading is formulated. This problem can be interpreted as a Markov decision process with a carefully designed reward function. Third, to address the offloading problem, we propose a multi-agent proximal policy optimization-based task and target selection algorithm (MAPPO-TTSA). This algorithm also utilizes convolutional neural networks to extract features from large-scale states, thereby enhancing their correlation. Fourth, comprehensive training is performed on the observational data to determine the optimal parameters for predicting task offloading. Finally, extensive experiments are conducted, and simulation results are provided to demonstrate that the proposed intelligent task offloading scheme offers significant advantages in terms of average task completion delay and utility level across various scenarios.

Vehicular platoon, a cutting-edge technology in the realm of intelligent transportation systems, holds the promise of transforming vehicle operations on roadways. By fostering seamless communication among vehicles and leveraging advanced automation, vehicular platoon enables vehicles to travel closely together, thereby reducing aerodynamic drag, optimizing fuel consumption, and improving road safety. However, due to their open and highly dynamic characteristics, the existing platoon communication schemes face efficiency and privacy challenges. These challenges stem from a substantial overhead on the Trusted Authority (TA) and vehicle sides during platoon communication, and a lack of multi-dimensional privacy preservation (e.g., identity privacy, location privacy, attribute privacy, and reputation value privacy) for platoon vehicles. To overcome these challenges, in this paper, we propose an efficient and multi-dimensional privacy-preserving platoon communication (EMPPC) scheme. Specifically, platoon formation is cloud-assisted and relies on the location, attribute, and reputation value of vehicles. We introduce a secure reputation value ciphertext comparison (SRCC) protocol during platoon leader selection, and present an attribute verification and matching (AVM) algorithm during platoon followers matching. Theoretical analysis and simulation evaluation demonstrate that the EMPPC scheme can offer multi-dimensional privacy preservation, and it is secure and efficient for platoon communication.

Methods based on variational bayes theorytare widely used to detect community structures in networks. In recent years, many related methods have emerged that provide valuable insights into variational bayes theory. Remarkably, a fundamental assumption remains incomprehensible. Variational bayes-based methods typically employ a posterior distribution that follows a gaussian distribution to approximate the unknown prior distribution. However, the complexity and irregularity of node distributions in real-world networks prompt us to consider what characteristics of network information are suitable for the posterior distribution. Mathematically, inappropriate low- and high-frequency signals in expectation inference and variance inference can intensify the adverse effects of community distortion and ambiguity. To analysis these two phenomena and propose reasonable countermeasures, we conduct an empirical study. It is found that appropriately compressing low-frequency signals during expectation inference and amplifying high-frequency signals during variance inference are effective strategies. Based on these two strategies, this paper proposes a novel variational bayes plug-in, namely VBPG, to boost the performance of existing variational bayes-based community detection methods. Specifically, we modulate the frequency signals during expectation and variance inference to generate a new gaussian distribution. This strategy improves the fitting accuracy between the posterior distribution and the unknown true distribution without altering the modules of existing methods. The comprehensive experimental results validate that methods using VBPG achieve competitive performance improvements in most cases.

With the ability to produce renewable energy sources and control system devices in an adaptive way, smart home systems (SHSs) have significantly improved the quality of our lives. Due to the mission-critical nature and the complex correlations within the system, it is imperative to perform reliability analysis on SHSs. This article studies the reliability of SHSs performing multiphase mission and subject to both common cause failures and cascading behaviors, where the occurrence of common causes would cause failures of multiple components and the failure of a component may further affect other system components in a domino chain manner. In this article, we propose a multivalued decision diagram-based method to assess reliability of phased-mission SHS with cascading common cause effect. The proposed method, applicable to arbitrary time-to-failure distributions, is generalized to reliability analysis of SHSs with multiple repeated operation cycles. Both space and computational complexities of the proposed method are discussed; the correctness is verified using the Monte Carlo simulation method. A detailed case study on an SHS example is performed to illustrate the application and advantages of the proposed method. A sensitivity analysis is carried out to examine the contribution of each component failure to the overall failure of the example SHS.

Invariant representation learning (IRL) encourages the prediction from invariant causal features to labels deconfounded from the environments, advancing the technical roadmap of out-of-distribution (OOD) generalization. Despite spotlights around, recent theoretical result verified that some causal features recovered by IRLs merely pretend domain-invariantly in the training environments but fail in unseen domains. The fake invariance severely endangers OOD generalization since the trustful objective can not be diagnosed and existing causal remedies are invalid to rectify. In this paper, we review a IRL family (InvRat) under the Partially and Fully Informative Invariant Feature Structural Causal Models (PIIF SCM /FIIF SCM) respectively, to certify their weaknesses in representing fake invariant features, then, unify their causal diagrams to propose ReStructured SCM (RS-SCM). RS-SCM can ideally rebuild the spurious and the fake invariant features simultaneously. Given this, we further develop an approach based on conditional mutual information with respect to RS-SCM, then rigorously rectify the spurious and fake invariant effects. It can be easily implemented by a small feature selection subnet introduced in the IRL family, which is alternatively optimized to achieve our goal. Experiments verified the superiority of our approach to fight against the fake invariant issue across a variety of OOD generalization benchmarks.

Automatic Essay Scoring (AES) is a well-established educational pursuit that employs machine learning to evaluate student-authored essays. While much effort has been made in this area, current research primarily focuses on either (i) boosting the predictive accuracy of an AES model for a specific prompt (i.e., developing prompt-specific models), which often heavily relies on the use of the labeled data from the same target prompt; or (ii) assessing the applicability of AES models developed on non-target prompts to the intended target prompt (i.e., developing the AES models in a cross-prompt setting). Given the inherent bias in machine learning and its potential impact on marginalized groups, it is imperative to investigate whether such bias exists in current AES methods and, if identified, how it intervenes with an AES model's accuracy and generalizability. Thus, our study aimed to uncover the intricate relationship between an AES model's accuracy, fairness, and generalizability, contributing practical insights for developing effective AES models in real-world education. To this end, we meticulously selected nine prominent AES methods and evaluated their performance using seven distinct metrics on an open-sourced dataset, which contains over 25,000 essays and various demographic information about students such as gender, English language learner status, and economic status. Through extensive evaluations, we demonstrated that: (1) prompt-specific models tend to outperform their cross-prompt counterparts in terms of predictive accuracy; (2) prompt-specific models frequently exhibit a greater bias towards students of different economic statuses compared to cross-prompt models; (3) in the pursuit of generalizability, traditional machine learning models (e.g., SVM) coupled with carefully engineered features hold greater potential for achieving both high accuracy and fairness than complex neural network models.

In this study, we tackle the challenge of parcel damage detection and present YTCNet to improve both accuracy and real-time performance. We enhance the Yolov5 algorithm by integrating C3TR modules into the architecture to capture more comprehensive feature information. Furthermore, we introduce the CBAM attention module to focus on critical areas in parcel images, enhancing the model’s feature extraction capabilities. By effectively combining C3TR and CBAM modules, we successfully developed an efficient parcel damage detection algorithm. Our experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of YTCNet in accuracy and real-time processing compared to various object detection models across multiple parcel damage scenarios. Our research significantly contributes to the logistics supply chain industry by aligning with IoT development. It enables practical applications to more effectively identify parcel damage, thereby enhancing customer satisfaction.

In the realm of short-term portfolio optimization, the integration of machine learning with exponential growth rate techniques is gaining prominence. This paper introduces a novel approach for short-term portfolio optimization, termed Short-term Portfolio Optimization using Doubly Regularized EGR (SPODR), to address the challenges posed by limited data availability. SPODR utilizes radial basis functions for the effective identification of market trends, enabling improved stock market forecasts. The approach uniquely combines ℓ1and ℓ2-regularization, adhering to empirical financial principles, to strike a balance between risk and return in short-term portfolios. A key aspect of SPODR is addressing the complexity of its ElasticNet-like objective, which poses a challenge for traditional methods due to its online learning nature. To overcome this, we have developed an algorithm based on the log barrier interior-point method. This algorithm is adept at efficiently optimizing portfolio allocation, taking into account the specific constraints inherent in our approach. Extensive comparative experiments across five benchmark datasets demonstrate that SPODR significantly outperforms existing short-term portfolio optimization models. It achieves a right balance between return and risk. Furthermore, SPODR showcases efficient computational speed, enhancing its applicability in real-world financial settings.

The express delivery industry has become integral to modern social life, but supply chain parcels, especially those made of corrugated cardboard, are at risk of damage during transportation. Although corrugated cardboard boxes offer some impact resistance, they can still experience deformation and penetration damage. To address this issue, we propose a hybrid model called Parcels-DNet. Parcels-DNet adopts a lightweight feature extraction backbone network, enabling deployment in resource-constrained scenarios like mobile or embedded devices. Additionally, our experimental results demonstrate that Parcels-DNet effectively captures the features of parcel deformation and penetration damage. This improves the safety and efficiency of express supply chain parcel transportation, offering greater convenience and economic benefits for the logistics industry.

Security vulnerabilities, illustrated by the menace of track traffic or vehicle hacking, present a substantial risk to the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus, enabling unauthorized remote access and intrusion. Nevertheless, existing vehicle intrusion detection models encounter challenges in capturing temporal aspects, compromising the preservation of temporal attributes in the data. Addressing this predicament, we propose a novel Vehicle Intrusion Detection System (PTIDS) model based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Transformer architecture, equipped with multi-type classification decisions. This model utilizes the PCA algorithm to preprocess the data and employs a multi-head self-attention mechanism to simulate the continuous input of the real-world environment in vehicle or track traffic data. Experimental results demonstrate that the PTIDS model outperforms traditional neural networks regarding accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score for vehicle intrusion detection, confirming the importance of temporal variables in intrusion detection. However, owing to the high accuracy and low discrimination of the PTIDS model on the Car Hacking dataset, we migrated the model to the M-CAN and B-CAN intrusion datasets and conducted ablation experiments. The results reveal that the model achieved an accuracy of 90.14% on the M-CAN dataset, surpassing other models by 54.5%, demonstrating robust generalization ability.

Modern society largely depends on various network systems such as computer networks, communications, and power networks, it is crucial to exactly compute the reliability of these network systems. The exact computation of network reliability is known to be #P-Complete problem. The state-of-the-art exact computation method is based on binary decision diagrams (BDDs). Sentential decision diagrams (SDDs) are a new canonical representation of Boolean functions which is a strict superset of BDD. In both theoretical and practical perspectives, SDDs are a more compact representation than BDDs. In addition, it maintains canonicity and polynomial-time operations on Boolean functions. In this paper, we propose a top-down compilation algorithm based on SDD for representing the set of subgraphs that makes the network active. Then the exact computation of network reliability is based on the constructed SDD. The experiments show that in most real networks and all synthetic networks, the resulting SDD is smaller than the BDD representing the same set of subgraphs. Thus, SDD-based method to exact computation of network reliability is more efficient than BDD-based.

Multi-Modal Large Language Models (MM-LLMs) have demonstrated powerful reasoning abilities in various visual question-answering tasks. However, they face the challenge of lacking rigorous reasoning and precise arithmetic, when solving geometry questions. To address this challenge, we propose a novel prompting method, namely Reason-and-Execute (R&E), to enhance the accuracy of solving geometry questions by MM-LLMs. Specifically, the R&E method includes two templates: reasoning template and execution template. We first adopt a reverse-thinking approach to construct a rigorous reasoning template so that it guides MM-LLMs to start reasoning from the most relevant domain knowledge of the question and ultimately identify the arithmetic requirements. We then make use of program-assisted thought to construct execution template in order to guide MM-LLMs to understand the arithmetic requirements from reasoning template and generate executable code block. The answer is finally obtained by executing the code block. We evaluate our prompting method on 9 models in answering questions on 6 datasets (including four geometry datasets and two science datasets) compared to Chain-of-Thought (CoT) and Program-Aided Language (PAL) prompting methods. R&E method shows up to 12.8% improvement compared to CoT and PAL, proving strong reasoning and arithmetic abilities for solving geometry questions of our method. Moreover, we further analyze the answering accuracy from the different perspectives on solving geometric questions, including domain knowledge, geometry shapes, question length, and language. Through multiple analysis, our method is able to enhance the ability of MM-LLMs to solve geometry questions.

This paper focuses on the issue of resource allocation in vehicular networking, specifically in scenarios where vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) links coexist with vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) links that utilize pre-allocated spectrum resources for communication. Different link has different quality-of-service (QoS). The V2I links commonly provide high data rate service, while the V2V links usually offer reliable safety message exchange service. However, due to the high mobility of vehicles, the communication network topology is constantly changing, which imposes a significant challenge on ensuring QoS for both V2I and V2V links with minimal overhead. To address this, we propose a joint spectrum and power allocation scheme based on the Multi-Agent Proximal Policy Optimization (MAPPO) algorithm, which has demonstrated excellent performance in multi-intelligent cooperation scenarios and can facilitate the learning process for agents without requiring global information. Furthermore, the D-MAPPO and C-MAPPO based allocation schemes are presented for two different cases, discrete finite power choices and continuous power, respectively. To deal with the non-stationarity during training for multi-agent cooperation, the method of general advantage estimation is utilized to enhance the robustness of proposed algorithms. Finally, simulation results are given to indicate that our schemes can effectively ensure a high capacity of V2I links while guaranteeing stringent low latency and high reliability for V2V links.

Trend representation has been attracting more and more attention recently in portfolio optimization (PO) via machine learning methods. It adopts concepts and phenomena from the field of empirical and behavioral finance when little prior knowledge is obtained or strict statistical assumptions cannot be guaranteed. It is used mostly in estimating the expected asset returns, but hardly in measuring risk. To fill this gap, we propose a novel multitrend conditional value at risk (MT-CVaR), which embeds multiple trends and their influences in CVaR. Besides, we propose a novel PO model with this MT-CVaR as the risk metric and then design a solving algorithm based on the interior point method to compute the portfolio. Extensive experiments on six benchmark datasets from diverse financial markets with different frequencies show that MT-CVaR achieves the state-of-the-art investing performance and risk management.

Effective exercise recommendation is crucial for guiding students' learning trajectories and fostering their interest in the subject matter. However, the vast exercise resource and the varying learning abilities of individual students pose a significant challenge in selecting appropriate exercise questions. Collaborative filtering-based methods often struggle with recommending suitable exercises, while deep learning-based methods lack explanation, limiting their practical adoption. To address these limitations, this paper proposes KG4Ex, a knowledge graph-based exercise recommendation method. KG4Ex facilitates the matching of diverse students with suitable exercises while providing recommendation reasons. Specifically, we introduce a feature extraction module to represent students' learning states and construct a knowledge graph for exercise recommendation. This knowledge graph comprises three key entities (knowledge concepts, students, and exercises) and their interrelationships, and can be used to recommend suitable exercises. Extensive experiments on three real-world datasets and expert interviews demonstrate the superiority of KG4Ex over existing baseline methods and highlight its strong explainability.

Community detection in multiplex networks has received considerable attention in recent years. However, existing methods that combine graph embedding and downstream tasks still face two challenges. The first is how to fully explore the correlation among the layers in the multiplex networks, and the second is how to make the learned node representation more applicable to the community detection tasks. Aiming at these challenges, we propose a novel self-supervised multiplex community detection model called MGCAE which is based on graph neural networks. To solve the first challenge, we compute the mutual information maximization loss in the self-supervision module. The mutual information includes global representation and common representation of nodes in different layers, and node representation in each layer. For the second challenge, we combine a Bernoulli-Poisson loss and a modularity maximization loss to jointly optimize the reconstruction of the original adjacency matrix, which is in line with the rigorous theory of modularity. We treat graph convolutional autoencoder (GCAE) as the backbone framework and train it by using the unified loss mentioned above. In addition, the model obtains the community detection results in an end-to-end manner, which makes the model independent of downstream tasks and more stable. Experiments on real-world attributed multiplex network datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our model.

The vision community is undergoing the unprecedented progress with the emergence of Vision-Language Pretraining Models (VLMs). Prompt learning plays as the holy grail of accessing VLMs since it enables their fast adaptation to downstream tasks with limited resources. Whereas existing researches milling around single-prompt paradigms, rarely investigate the technical potential behind their multi-prompt learning counterparts. This paper aims to provide a principled retrospect for vision-language multi-prompt learning. We extend the recent constant modality gap phenomenon to learnable prompts and then, justify the superiority of vision-language transfer with multi-prompt augmentation, empirically and theoretically. In terms of this observation, we propose an Energy-based Multi-prompt Learning (EMPL) to generate multiple prompt embeddings by drawing instances from an energy-based distribution, which is implicitly defined by VLMs. So our EMPL is not only parameter-efficient but also rigorously lead to the balance between in-domain and out-of-domain open-vocabulary generalization. Comprehensive experiments have been conducted to justify our claims and the excellence of EMPL.

In order to improve the security of IoT information systems, this paper proposes the Blockchain-based Framework for Securing IoT Information (BFSII), which is built on consortium blockchain and the edge IoT architectures. This paper addresses data security in smart hotels as a research scenario. The majority of data generated by IoT devices in smart hotels contains users' private information, which is susceptible to alteration and leakage during transmission and storage. The BFSII solution leverages the decentralized nature of blockchain to enhance data traceability and tamper-proof capabilities. And it uses edge IoT architecture and consortium blockchain to improve system operational efficiency. Sensitive data generated by IoT devices are protected in BFSII. The experiment's findings show that BFSII can boost smart hotel system security while maintaining operational effectiveness. The information management system of smart hotels is provided with an inventive and secure solution by the BFSII framework.

The primary aim of cognitive diagnosis is to predict students' performance and knowledge structures by analyzing their learning behavior and answering results, thereby enabling educators can provide personalized instruction. Scholars have proposed many cognitive diagnostic models. However, most of the models do not fully extract and utilize the relevant data and parameters of cognitive diagnosis. Moreover, some models only rely on artificially designed simple functions to analyze the cognitive process of students, which cannot fully capture the complex relationship between students and the exercises. To address these limitations, this paper proposes a neural cognitive diagnostic model named NCDFSA, which focuses on students' attention to knowledge concepts. The model utilizes neural networks to diagnose students' knowledge and considers students' implicit relationships with knowledge concepts. We introduce the concept of attention matrix(AM) and define the importance of knowledge concepts by the frequency of usage of knowledge concepts to improve the prediction effect. This paper compares NCDFSA with existing classical models on four real datasets and finds that the model has higher accuracy and rationality in predicting student performance.

The Knowledge Tracing (KT) task aims to trace the changes of students' knowledge state in real time according to students' historical learning behavior, and predict students' future learning performance. The modern KT models have two problems. One is that these KT models can't reflect students' actual knowledge level. Most KT models only judge students' knowledge state based on their performance in exercises, and poor performance will lead to a decline in knowledge state. However, the essence of students' learning process is the process of acquiring knowledge, which is also a manifestation of learning behavior. Even if they answer the exercises incorrectly, they will still gain knowledge. The other problem is that many KT models don't pay enough attention to the impact of students' forgetting behavior on the knowledge state in the learning process. In fact, learning and forgetting behavior run through students' learning process, and their effects on students' knowledge state shouldn't be ignored. In this paper, based on educational psychology theory, we propose a knowledge tracing model with learning and forgetting behavior (LFBKT). LFBKT comprehensively considers the factors that affect learning and forgetting behavior to build the knowledge acquisition layer, knowledge absorption layer and knowledge forgetting layer. In addition, LFBKT introduces difficulty information to enrich the information of the exercise itself, while taking into account other answering performances besides the answer. Experimental results on two public datasets show that LFBKT can better trace students' knowledge state and outperforms existing models in terms of ACC and AUC.

Cognitive diagnosis is a crucial task in the field of educational measurement and psychology, which aims to diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of participants. Existing cognitive diagnosis methods only consider which of knowledge concepts are involved in the knowledge components of exercises, but ignore the fact that different knowledge concepts have different effects on practice scores in actual learning situations. Therefore, researchers need to reshape the learning scene by combining the multi-factor relationships between knowledge components. In this paper, in order to more comprehensively simulate the interaction between students and exercises, we developed a neural network-based CDMFKC model for cognitive diagnosis. Our method not only captures the nonlinear interaction between exercise characteristics, student performance, and their mastery of each knowledge concept, but also further considers the impact of knowledge concepts by designing the difficulty and discrimination of knowledge concepts, and uses multiple neural layers to model their interaction so as to obtain accurate and interpretable diagnostic results. In addition, we propose an improved CDMFKC model with guessing parameter and slipping parameter designed by knowledge concept proficiency and student proficiency vectors. We validate the performance of these two diagnostic models on six real datasets. The experimental results show that the two models have better effects in the aspects of accuracy, rationality and interpretability.

With the steady growth of Android malware, we suspect that, during the malware development phase, some Android malware writers use the popular public scanning services (e.g., VirusTotal) for testing the evasion capability of their malware samples, which we name Android malware development cases (AMDs). In this work, we design an AMD hunter in the context of VirusTotal to hunt for AMDs and reveal new threats for Android. First, the AMD hunter sifts through millions of file submissions on VirusTotal efficiently and alert more suspicious submission traces. Second, it performs package level analysis, static code and dynamic analyses on the APKs of the suspicious submissions to validate the AMDs. The implemented hunter has been used in a leading security company for 4 months, which processed 153 million of submissions on VirusTotal, and identified 1,623 AMDs with 13,855 samples from 83 countries. We also performed case studies on 890 malware samples selected from the identified AMDs, which revealed lots of new threats, including the development cases of fake system/banking phishing app, new rooting exploits, new JavaScript based threats, new evasions and AV probing malware. We wrote industry research articles about some AMDs and notified other security vendors to help patch their false negatives. Besides raising the awareness of the existence of AMDs, more importantly, our research provides the first systematic and efficient way to study the malware development phenomenon on VirusTotal. We will share all the samples of the identified AMDs with the research community.

TCP congestion control is a vital component for the latency of Web services. In practice, a single congestion control mechanism is often used to handle all TCP connections on a Web server, e.g., Cubic for Linux by default. Considering complex and ever-changing networking environment, the default congestion control may not always be the most suitable one. Adjusting congestion control to meet different networking scenarios usually requires modification of TCP stacks on a server. This is difficult, if not impossible, due to various operating system and application configurations on production servers. In this paper, we propose Mystique, a light-weight, flexible, and dynamic congestion control switching scheme that allows network or server administrators to deploy any congestion control schemes transparently without modifying existing TCP stacks on servers. We have implemented Mystique in Open vSwitch (OVS) and conducted extensive test-bed experiments in both public and private cloud environments. Experiment results have demonstrated that Mystique is able to effectively adapt to varying network conditions, and can always employ the most suitable congestion control for each TCP connection. More specifically, Mystique can significantly reduce latency by 18.13% on average when compared with individual congestion controls.