WGLE:Backdoor-free and Multi-bit Black-box Watermarking for Graph Neural Networkscs.AI updates on arXiv.org arXiv:2506.08602v2 Announce Type: replace-cross
Abstract: Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) are increasingly deployed in real-world applications, making ownership verification critical to protect their intellectual property against model theft. Fingerprinting and black-box watermarking are two main methods. However, the former relies on determining model similarity, which is computationally expensive and prone to ownership collisions after model post-processing. The latter embeds backdoors, exposing watermarked models to the risk of backdoor attacks. Moreover, both previous methods enable ownership verification but do not convey additional information about the copy model. If the owner has multiple models, each model requires a distinct trigger graph.
To address these challenges, this paper proposes WGLE, a novel black-box watermarking paradigm for GNNs that enables embedding the multi-bit string in GNN models without using backdoors. WGLE builds on a key insight we term Layer-wise Distance Difference on an Edge (LDDE), which quantifies the difference between the feature distance and the prediction distance of two connected nodes in a graph. By assigning unique LDDE values to the edges and employing the LDDE sequence as the watermark, WGLE supports multi-bit capacity without relying on backdoor mechanisms. We evaluate WGLE on six public datasets across six mainstream GNN architectures, and compare WGLE with state-of-the-art GNN watermarking and fingerprinting methods. WGLE achieves 100% ownership verification accuracy, with an average fidelity degradation of only 1.41%. Additionally, WGLE exhibits robust resilience against potential attacks. The code is available in the repository.
arXiv:2506.08602v2 Announce Type: replace-cross
Abstract: Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) are increasingly deployed in real-world applications, making ownership verification critical to protect their intellectual property against model theft. Fingerprinting and black-box watermarking are two main methods. However, the former relies on determining model similarity, which is computationally expensive and prone to ownership collisions after model post-processing. The latter embeds backdoors, exposing watermarked models to the risk of backdoor attacks. Moreover, both previous methods enable ownership verification but do not convey additional information about the copy model. If the owner has multiple models, each model requires a distinct trigger graph.
To address these challenges, this paper proposes WGLE, a novel black-box watermarking paradigm for GNNs that enables embedding the multi-bit string in GNN models without using backdoors. WGLE builds on a key insight we term Layer-wise Distance Difference on an Edge (LDDE), which quantifies the difference between the feature distance and the prediction distance of two connected nodes in a graph. By assigning unique LDDE values to the edges and employing the LDDE sequence as the watermark, WGLE supports multi-bit capacity without relying on backdoor mechanisms. We evaluate WGLE on six public datasets across six mainstream GNN architectures, and compare WGLE with state-of-the-art GNN watermarking and fingerprinting methods. WGLE achieves 100% ownership verification accuracy, with an average fidelity degradation of only 1.41%. Additionally, WGLE exhibits robust resilience against potential attacks. The code is available in the repository. Read More
Rethinking Supervised Fine-Tuning: Emphasizing Key Answer Tokens for Improved LLM Accuracycs.AI updates on arXiv.org arXiv:2512.21017v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: With the rapid advancement of Large Language Models (LLMs), the Chain-of-Thought (CoT) component has become significant for complex reasoning tasks. However, in conventional Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT), the model could allocate disproportionately more attention to CoT sequences with excessive length. This reduces focus on the much shorter but essential Key portion-the final answer, whose correctness directly determines task success and evaluation quality. To address this limitation, we propose SFTKey, a two-stage training scheme. In the first stage, conventional SFT is applied to ensure proper output format, while in the second stage, only the Key portion is fine-tuned to improve accuracy. Extensive experiments across multiple benchmarks and model families demonstrate that SFTKey achieves an average accuracy improvement exceeding 5% over conventional SFT, while preserving the ability to generate correct formats. Overall, this study advances LLM fine-tuning by explicitly balancing CoT learning with additional optimization on answer-relevant tokens.
arXiv:2512.21017v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: With the rapid advancement of Large Language Models (LLMs), the Chain-of-Thought (CoT) component has become significant for complex reasoning tasks. However, in conventional Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT), the model could allocate disproportionately more attention to CoT sequences with excessive length. This reduces focus on the much shorter but essential Key portion-the final answer, whose correctness directly determines task success and evaluation quality. To address this limitation, we propose SFTKey, a two-stage training scheme. In the first stage, conventional SFT is applied to ensure proper output format, while in the second stage, only the Key portion is fine-tuned to improve accuracy. Extensive experiments across multiple benchmarks and model families demonstrate that SFTKey achieves an average accuracy improvement exceeding 5% over conventional SFT, while preserving the ability to generate correct formats. Overall, this study advances LLM fine-tuning by explicitly balancing CoT learning with additional optimization on answer-relevant tokens. Read More
Compressed Causal Reasoning: Quantization and GraphRAG Effects on Interventional and Counterfactual Accuracycs.AI updates on arXiv.org arXiv:2512.13725v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Causal reasoning in Large Language Models spanning association, intervention, and counterfactual inference is essential for reliable decision making in high stakes settings. As deployment shifts toward edge and resource constrained environments, quantized models such as INT8 and NF4 are becoming standard. Yet the impact of precision reduction on formal causal reasoning is poorly understood. To our knowledge, this is the first study to systematically evaluate quantization effects across all three levels of Pearls Causal Ladder. Using a 3000 sample stratified CLadder benchmark, we find that rung level accuracy in Llama 3 8B remains broadly stable under quantization, with NF4 showing less than one percent overall degradation. Interventional queries at rung 2 are the most sensitive to precision loss, whereas counterfactual reasoning at rung 3 is comparatively stable but exhibits heterogeneous weaknesses across query types such as collider bias and backdoor adjustment. Experiments on the CRASS benchmark show near identical performance across precisions, indicating that existing commonsense counterfactual datasets lack the structural sensitivity needed to reveal quantization induced reasoning drift. We further evaluate Graph Retrieval Augmented Generation using ground truth causal graphs and observe a consistent improvement in NF4 interventional accuracy of plus 1.7 percent, partially offsetting compression related degradation. These results suggest that causal reasoning is unexpectedly robust to four bit quantization, graph structured augmentation can selectively reinforce interventional reasoning, and current counterfactual benchmarks fail to capture deeper causal brittleness. This work provides an initial empirical map of compressed causal reasoning and practical guidance for deploying efficient and structurally supported causal AI systems.
arXiv:2512.13725v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Causal reasoning in Large Language Models spanning association, intervention, and counterfactual inference is essential for reliable decision making in high stakes settings. As deployment shifts toward edge and resource constrained environments, quantized models such as INT8 and NF4 are becoming standard. Yet the impact of precision reduction on formal causal reasoning is poorly understood. To our knowledge, this is the first study to systematically evaluate quantization effects across all three levels of Pearls Causal Ladder. Using a 3000 sample stratified CLadder benchmark, we find that rung level accuracy in Llama 3 8B remains broadly stable under quantization, with NF4 showing less than one percent overall degradation. Interventional queries at rung 2 are the most sensitive to precision loss, whereas counterfactual reasoning at rung 3 is comparatively stable but exhibits heterogeneous weaknesses across query types such as collider bias and backdoor adjustment. Experiments on the CRASS benchmark show near identical performance across precisions, indicating that existing commonsense counterfactual datasets lack the structural sensitivity needed to reveal quantization induced reasoning drift. We further evaluate Graph Retrieval Augmented Generation using ground truth causal graphs and observe a consistent improvement in NF4 interventional accuracy of plus 1.7 percent, partially offsetting compression related degradation. These results suggest that causal reasoning is unexpectedly robust to four bit quantization, graph structured augmentation can selectively reinforce interventional reasoning, and current counterfactual benchmarks fail to capture deeper causal brittleness. This work provides an initial empirical map of compressed causal reasoning and practical guidance for deploying efficient and structurally supported causal AI systems. Read More
AutoBaxBuilder: Bootstrapping Code Security Benchmarkingcs.AI updates on arXiv.org arXiv:2512.21132v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: As LLMs see wide adoption in software engineering, the reliable assessment of the correctness and security of LLM-generated code is crucial. Notably, prior work has demonstrated that security is often overlooked, exposing that LLMs are prone to generating code with security vulnerabilities. These insights were enabled by specialized benchmarks, crafted through significant manual effort by security experts. However, relying on manually-crafted benchmarks is insufficient in the long term, because benchmarks (i) naturally end up contaminating training data, (ii) must extend to new tasks to provide a more complete picture, and (iii) must increase in difficulty to challenge more capable LLMs. In this work, we address these challenges and present AutoBaxBuilder, a framework that generates tasks and tests for code security benchmarking from scratch. We introduce a robust pipeline with fine-grained plausibility checks, leveraging the code understanding capabilities of LLMs to construct functionality tests and end-to-end security-probing exploits. To confirm the quality of the generated benchmark, we conduct both a qualitative analysis and perform quantitative experiments, comparing it against tasks constructed by human experts. We use AutoBaxBuilder to construct entirely new tasks and release them to the public as AutoBaxBench, together with a thorough evaluation of the security capabilities of LLMs on these tasks. We find that a new task can be generated in under 2 hours, costing less than USD 10.
arXiv:2512.21132v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: As LLMs see wide adoption in software engineering, the reliable assessment of the correctness and security of LLM-generated code is crucial. Notably, prior work has demonstrated that security is often overlooked, exposing that LLMs are prone to generating code with security vulnerabilities. These insights were enabled by specialized benchmarks, crafted through significant manual effort by security experts. However, relying on manually-crafted benchmarks is insufficient in the long term, because benchmarks (i) naturally end up contaminating training data, (ii) must extend to new tasks to provide a more complete picture, and (iii) must increase in difficulty to challenge more capable LLMs. In this work, we address these challenges and present AutoBaxBuilder, a framework that generates tasks and tests for code security benchmarking from scratch. We introduce a robust pipeline with fine-grained plausibility checks, leveraging the code understanding capabilities of LLMs to construct functionality tests and end-to-end security-probing exploits. To confirm the quality of the generated benchmark, we conduct both a qualitative analysis and perform quantitative experiments, comparing it against tasks constructed by human experts. We use AutoBaxBuilder to construct entirely new tasks and release them to the public as AutoBaxBench, together with a thorough evaluation of the security capabilities of LLMs on these tasks. We find that a new task can be generated in under 2 hours, costing less than USD 10. Read More
A Physics Informed Neural Network For Deriving MHD State Vectors From Global Active Regions Observationscs.AI updates on arXiv.org arXiv:2512.20747v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Solar active regions (ARs) do not appear randomly but cluster along longitudinally warped toroidal bands (‘toroids’) that encode information about magnetic structures in the tachocline, where global-scale organization likely originates. Global MagnetoHydroDynamic Shallow-Water Tachocline (MHD-SWT) models have shown potential to simulate such toroids, matching observations qualitatively. For week-scale early prediction of flare-producing AR emergence, forward-integration of these toroids is necessary. This requires model initialization with a dynamically self-consistent MHD state-vector that includes magnetic, flow fields, and shell-thickness variations. However, synoptic magnetograms provide only geometric shape of toroids, not the state-vector needed to initialize MHD-SWT models. To address this challenging task, we develop PINNBARDS, a novel Physics-Informed Neural Network (PINN)-Based AR Distribution Simulator, that uses observational toroids and MHD-SWT equations to derive initial state-vector. Using Feb-14-2024 SDO/HMI synoptic map, we show that PINN converges to physically consistent, predominantly antisymmetric toroids, matching observed ones. Although surface data provides north and south toroids’ central latitudes, and their latitudinal widths, they cannot determine tachocline field strengths, connected to AR emergence. We explore here solutions across a broad parameter range, finding hydrodynamically-dominated structures for weak fields (~2 kG) and overly rigid behavior for strong fields (~100 kG). We obtain best agreement with observations for 20-30 kG toroidal fields, and ~10 degree bandwidth, consistent with low-order longitudinal mode excitation. To our knowledge, PINNBARDS serves as the first method for reconstructing state-vectors for hidden tachocline magnetic structures from surface patterns; potentially leading to weeks ahead prediction of flare-producing AR-emergence.
arXiv:2512.20747v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Solar active regions (ARs) do not appear randomly but cluster along longitudinally warped toroidal bands (‘toroids’) that encode information about magnetic structures in the tachocline, where global-scale organization likely originates. Global MagnetoHydroDynamic Shallow-Water Tachocline (MHD-SWT) models have shown potential to simulate such toroids, matching observations qualitatively. For week-scale early prediction of flare-producing AR emergence, forward-integration of these toroids is necessary. This requires model initialization with a dynamically self-consistent MHD state-vector that includes magnetic, flow fields, and shell-thickness variations. However, synoptic magnetograms provide only geometric shape of toroids, not the state-vector needed to initialize MHD-SWT models. To address this challenging task, we develop PINNBARDS, a novel Physics-Informed Neural Network (PINN)-Based AR Distribution Simulator, that uses observational toroids and MHD-SWT equations to derive initial state-vector. Using Feb-14-2024 SDO/HMI synoptic map, we show that PINN converges to physically consistent, predominantly antisymmetric toroids, matching observed ones. Although surface data provides north and south toroids’ central latitudes, and their latitudinal widths, they cannot determine tachocline field strengths, connected to AR emergence. We explore here solutions across a broad parameter range, finding hydrodynamically-dominated structures for weak fields (~2 kG) and overly rigid behavior for strong fields (~100 kG). We obtain best agreement with observations for 20-30 kG toroidal fields, and ~10 degree bandwidth, consistent with low-order longitudinal mode excitation. To our knowledge, PINNBARDS serves as the first method for reconstructing state-vectors for hidden tachocline magnetic structures from surface patterns; potentially leading to weeks ahead prediction of flare-producing AR-emergence. Read More
MegaRAG: Multimodal Knowledge Graph-Based Retrieval Augmented Generationcs.AI updates on arXiv.org arXiv:2512.20626v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) enables large language models (LLMs) to dynamically access external information, which is powerful for answering questions over previously unseen documents. Nonetheless, they struggle with high-level conceptual understanding and holistic comprehension due to limited context windows, which constrain their ability to perform deep reasoning over long-form, domain-specific content such as full-length books. To solve this problem, knowledge graphs (KGs) have been leveraged to provide entity-centric structure and hierarchical summaries, offering more structured support for reasoning. However, existing KG-based RAG solutions remain restricted to text-only inputs and fail to leverage the complementary insights provided by other modalities such as vision. On the other hand, reasoning from visual documents requires textual, visual, and spatial cues into structured, hierarchical concepts. To address this issue, we introduce a multimodal knowledge graph-based RAG that enables cross-modal reasoning for better content understanding. Our method incorporates visual cues into the construction of knowledge graphs, the retrieval phase, and the answer generation process. Experimental results across both global and fine-grained question answering tasks show that our approach consistently outperforms existing RAG-based approaches on both textual and multimodal corpora.
arXiv:2512.20626v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) enables large language models (LLMs) to dynamically access external information, which is powerful for answering questions over previously unseen documents. Nonetheless, they struggle with high-level conceptual understanding and holistic comprehension due to limited context windows, which constrain their ability to perform deep reasoning over long-form, domain-specific content such as full-length books. To solve this problem, knowledge graphs (KGs) have been leveraged to provide entity-centric structure and hierarchical summaries, offering more structured support for reasoning. However, existing KG-based RAG solutions remain restricted to text-only inputs and fail to leverage the complementary insights provided by other modalities such as vision. On the other hand, reasoning from visual documents requires textual, visual, and spatial cues into structured, hierarchical concepts. To address this issue, we introduce a multimodal knowledge graph-based RAG that enables cross-modal reasoning for better content understanding. Our method incorporates visual cues into the construction of knowledge graphs, the retrieval phase, and the answer generation process. Experimental results across both global and fine-grained question answering tasks show that our approach consistently outperforms existing RAG-based approaches on both textual and multimodal corpora. Read More
5 Fun Docker Projects for Absolute BeginnersKDnuggets Learn Docker by doing with five beginner-friendly projects covering hosting, multi-container apps, CI, and monitoring.
Learn Docker by doing with five beginner-friendly projects covering hosting, multi-container apps, CI, and monitoring. Read More
How to Build an AI-Powered Weather ETL Pipeline with Databricks and GPT-4o: From API To DashboardTowards Data Science A step-by-step guide from weather API ETL to dashboard on Databricks
The post How to Build an AI-Powered Weather ETL Pipeline with Databricks and GPT-4o: From API To Dashboard appeared first on Towards Data Science.
A step-by-step guide from weather API ETL to dashboard on Databricks
The post How to Build an AI-Powered Weather ETL Pipeline with Databricks and GPT-4o: From API To Dashboard appeared first on Towards Data Science. Read More
A Coding Implementation on Building Self-Organizing Zettelkasten Knowledge Graphs and Sleep-Consolidation MechanismsMarkTechPost In this tutorial, we dive into the cutting edge of Agentic AI by building a “Zettelkasten” memory system, a “living” architecture that organizes information much like the human brain. We move beyond standard retrieval methods to construct a dynamic knowledge graph where an agent autonomously decomposes inputs into atomic facts, links them semantically, and even
The post A Coding Implementation on Building Self-Organizing Zettelkasten Knowledge Graphs and Sleep-Consolidation Mechanisms appeared first on MarkTechPost.
In this tutorial, we dive into the cutting edge of Agentic AI by building a “Zettelkasten” memory system, a “living” architecture that organizes information much like the human brain. We move beyond standard retrieval methods to construct a dynamic knowledge graph where an agent autonomously decomposes inputs into atomic facts, links them semantically, and even
The post A Coding Implementation on Building Self-Organizing Zettelkasten Knowledge Graphs and Sleep-Consolidation Mechanisms appeared first on MarkTechPost. Read More
Several users of the Trust Wallet Chrome extension report having their cryptocurrency wallets drained after installing a compromised extension update released on December 24, prompting an urgent response from the company and warnings to affected users. Simultaneously, BleepingComputer observed a phishing domain launched by hackers. […] Read More