LGJan 29
Latent Spherical Flow Policy for Reinforcement Learning with Combinatorial ActionsLingkai Kong, Anagha Satish, Hezi Jiang et al.
Reinforcement learning (RL) with combinatorial action spaces remains challenging because feasible action sets are exponentially large and governed by complex feasibility constraints, making direct policy parameterization impractical. Existing approaches embed task-specific value functions into constrained optimization programs or learn deterministic structured policies, sacrificing generality and policy expressiveness. We propose a solver-induced \emph{latent spherical flow policy} that brings the expressiveness of modern generative policies to combinatorial RL while guaranteeing feasibility by design. Our method, LSFlow, learns a \emph{stochastic} policy in a compact continuous latent space via spherical flow matching, and delegates feasibility to a combinatorial optimization solver that maps each latent sample to a valid structured action. To improve efficiency, we train the value network directly in the latent space, avoiding repeated solver calls during policy optimization. To address the piecewise-constant and discontinuous value landscape induced by solver-based action selection, we introduce a smoothed Bellman operator that yields stable, well-defined learning targets. Empirically, our approach outperforms state-of-the-art baselines by an average of 20.6\% across a range of challenging combinatorial RL tasks.
CYFeb 19, 2025
Robust Optimization with Diffusion Models for Green SecurityLingkai Kong, Haichuan Wang, Yuqi Pan et al.
In green security, defenders must forecast adversarial behavior, such as poaching, illegal logging, and illegal fishing, to plan effective patrols. These behavior are often highly uncertain and complex. Prior work has leveraged game theory to design robust patrol strategies to handle uncertainty, but existing adversarial behavior models primarily rely on Gaussian processes or linear models, which lack the expressiveness needed to capture intricate behavioral patterns. To address this limitation, we propose a conditional diffusion model for adversary behavior modeling, leveraging its strong distribution-fitting capabilities. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first application of diffusion models in the green security domain. Integrating diffusion models into game-theoretic optimization, however, presents new challenges, including a constrained mixed strategy space and the need to sample from an unnormalized distribution to estimate utilities. To tackle these challenges, we introduce a mixed strategy of mixed strategies and employ a twisted Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) sampler for accurate sampling. Theoretically, our algorithm is guaranteed to converge to an epsilon equilibrium with high probability using a finite number of iterations and samples. Empirically, we evaluate our approach on both synthetic and real-world poaching datasets, demonstrating its effectiveness.
CLJan 12
LLM Review: Enhancing Creative Writing via Blind Peer Review FeedbackWeiyue Li, Mingxiao Song, Zhenda Shen et al.
Large Language Models (LLMs) often struggle with creative generation, and multi-agent frameworks that improve reasoning through interaction can paradoxically hinder creativity by inducing content homogenization. We introduce LLM Review, a peer-review-inspired framework implementing Blind Peer Review: agents exchange targeted feedback while revising independently, preserving divergent creative trajectories. To enable rigorous evaluation, we propose SciFi-100, a science fiction writing dataset with a unified framework combining LLM-as-a-judge scoring, human annotation, and rule-based novelty metrics. Experiments demonstrate that LLM Review consistently outperforms multi-agent baselines, and smaller models with our framework can surpass larger single-agent models, suggesting interaction structure may substitute for model scale.
TRMay 25, 2023
Abnormal Trading Detection in the NFT MarketMingxiao Song, Yunsong Liu, Agam Shah et al.
The Non-Fungible-Token (NFT) market has experienced explosive growth in recent years. According to DappRadar, the total transaction volume on OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, reached 34.7 billion dollars in February 2023. However, the NFT market is mostly unregulated and there are significant concerns about money laundering, fraud and wash trading. The lack of industry-wide regulations, and the fact that amateur traders and retail investors comprise a significant fraction of the NFT market, make this market particularly vulnerable to fraudulent activities. Therefore it is essential to investigate and highlight the relevant risks involved in NFT trading. In this paper, we attempted to uncover common fraudulent behaviors such as wash trading that could mislead other traders. Using market data, we designed quantitative features from the network, monetary, and temporal perspectives that were fed into K-means clustering unsupervised learning algorithm to sort traders into groups. Lastly, we discussed the clustering results' significance and how regulations can reduce undesired behaviors. Our work can potentially help regulators narrow down their search space for bad actors in the market as well as provide insights for amateur traders to protect themselves from unforeseen frauds.