Yanyan Zhang

Amazon AGI, Aaron Langford, Aayush Shah et al. · amazon-science

We present Amazon Nova, a new generation of state-of-the-art foundation models that deliver frontier intelligence and industry-leading price performance. Amazon Nova Pro is a highly-capable multimodal model with the best combination of accuracy, speed, and cost for a wide range of tasks. Amazon Nova Lite is a low-cost multimodal model that is lightning fast for processing images, video, documents and text. Amazon Nova Micro is a text-only model that delivers our lowest-latency responses at very low cost. Amazon Nova Canvas is an image generation model that creates professional grade images with rich customization controls. Amazon Nova Reel is a video generation model offering high-quality outputs, customization, and motion control. Our models were built responsibly and with a commitment to customer trust, security, and reliability. We report benchmarking results for core capabilities, agentic performance, long context, functional adaptation, runtime performance, and human evaluation.

Yang Yang, Jin Lang, Jian Wu et al.

The increasing installation rate of wind power poses great challenges to the global power system. In order to ensure the reliable operation of the power system, it is necessary to accurately forecast the wind speed and power of the wind turbines. At present, deep learning is progressively applied to the wind speed prediction. Nevertheless, the recent deep learning methods still reflect the embarrassment for practical applications due to model interpretability and hardware limitation. To this end, a novel deep knowledge-based learning method is proposed in this paper. The proposed method hybridizes pre-training method and auto-encoder structure to improve data representation and modeling of the deep knowledge-based learning framework. In order to form knowledge and corresponding absorbers, the original data is preprocessed by an optimization model based on correlation to construct multi-layer networks (knowledge) which are absorbed by sequence to sequence (Seq2Seq) models. Specifically, new cognition and memory units (CMU) are designed to reinforce traditional deep learning framework. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by three wind prediction cases from a wind farm in Liaoning, China. Experimental results show that the proposed method increases the stability and training efficiency compared to the traditional LSTM method and LSTM/GRU-based Seq2Seq method for applications of wind speed forecasting.

Shreyas Subramanian, Adewale Akinfaderin, Yanyan Zhang et al.

While Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) has proven effective for generating accurate, context-based responses based on existing knowledge bases, it presents several challenges including retrieval quality dependencies, integration complexity and cost. Recent advances in agentic-RAG and tool-augmented LLM architectures have introduced alternative approaches to information retrieval and processing. We question how much additional value vector databases and semantic search bring to RAG over simple, agentic keyword search in documents for question-answering. In this study, we conducted a systematic comparison between RAG-based systems and tool-augmented LLM agents, specifically evaluating their retrieval mechanisms and response quality when the agent only has access to basic keyword search tools. Our empirical analysis demonstrates that tool-based keyword search implementations within an agentic framework can attain over $90\%$ of the performance metrics compared to traditional RAG systems without using a standing vector database. Our approach is simple to implement, cost effective, and is particularly useful in scenarios requiring frequent updates to knowledge bases.

Vikash Singh, Weicong Chen, Debargha Ganguly et al.

Estimating treatment effects from observational data requires choosing an adjustment set, but valid adjustment depends on an unknown causal graph. Graph misspecification can cause under-coverage, while graph-agnostic conformal wrappers may regain nominal coverage only through large padding. We introduce CausalGuard, a structure-weighted conformal framework that calibrates after aggregating graph-conditional doubly robust pseudo-outcomes. Candidate DAGs are proposed from an LLM-derived edge prior, pruned by conditional-independence tests, and reweighted by Bayesian Information Criterion. A composite nonconformity score then calibrates the posterior-weighted pseudo-outcome. CausalGuard provides distribution-free finite-sample marginal coverage for this aggregated pseudo-outcome; under causal identification, overlap, conditional-mean nuisance stability, and concentration on target-aligned valid adjustment strategies, its conditional mean converges to the true Conditional Average Treatment Effect. Across five benchmarks, CausalGuard attains mean coverage above the nominal 90% level for the directly evaluable target and reduces width when graph-agnostic conformal baselines require large padding. Stress tests show that CausalGuard suppresses invalid collider adjustment and remains stable under misspecified priors when the retained candidate set is data-supported.

Yanyan Zhang, Chaoda Song, Vikash Singh et al.

Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models achieve remarkable flexibility and generalization beyond classical control paradigms. However, most prevailing VLAs are trained under a single-frame observation paradigm, which leaves them structurally blind to temporal dynamics. Consequently, these models degrade severely in non-stationary scenarios, even when trained or finetuned on dynamic datasets. Existing approaches either require expensive retraining or suffer from latency bottlenecks and poor temporal consistency across action chunks. We propose Pace-and-Path Correction, a training-free, closed-form inference-time operator that wraps any chunked-action VLA. From a single quadratic cost, joint minimization yields a unified solution that decomposes orthogonally into two distinct channels. The pace channel compresses execution along the planned direction, while the path channel applies an orthogonal spatial offset, jointly absorbing the perceived dynamics within the chunk window. We evaluate our approach on a comprehensive diagnostic benchmark MoveBench designed to isolate motion as the sole controlled variable. Empirical results demonstrate that our framework consistently outperforms state-of-the-art training-free wrappers and dynamic-adaptive methods and improves success rates by up to 28.8% and 25.9% in absolute terms over foundational VLA models in dynamic-only and static-dynamic mixed environments, respectively.

Jierui Peng, Yanyan Zhang, Yicheng Duan et al.

The evaluation of Vision-Language-Action (VLA) agents is hindered by the coarse, end-task success metric that fails to provide precise skill diagnosis or measure robustness to real-world perturbations. This challenge is exacerbated by a fragmented data landscape that impedes reproducible research and the development of generalist models. To address these limitations, we introduce NEBULA, a unified ecosystem for single-arm manipulation that enables diagnostic and reproducible evaluation. NEBULA features a novel dual-axis evaluation protocol that combines fine-grained capability tests for precise skill diagnosis with systematic stress tests that measure robustness. A standardized API and a large-scale, aggregated dataset are provided to reduce fragmentation and support cross-dataset training and fair comparison. Using NEBULA, we demonstrate that top-performing VLAs struggle with key capabilities such as spatial reasoning and dynamic adaptation, which are consistently obscured by conventional end-task success metrics. By measuring both what an agent can do and when it does so reliably, NEBULA provides a practical foundation for robust, general-purpose embodied agents.

Xing Zhao, Ping Lu, Yanyan Zhang et al.

In the geophysical field, seismic noise attenuation has been considered as a critical and long-standing problem, especially for the pre-stack data processing. Here, we propose a model to leverage the deep-learning model for this task. Rather than directly applying an existing de-noising model from ordinary images to the seismic data, we have designed a particular deep-learning model, based on residual neural networks. It is named as N2N-Seismic, which has a strong ability to recover the seismic signals back to intact condition with the preservation of primary signals. The proposed model, achieving with great success in attenuating noise, has been tested on two different seismic datasets. Several metrics show that our method outperforms conventional approaches in terms of Signal-to-Noise-Ratio, Mean-Squared-Error, Phase Spectrum, etc. Moreover, robust tests in terms of effectively removing random noise from any dataset with strong and weak noises have been extensively scrutinized in making sure that the proposed model is able to maintain a good level of adaptation while dealing with large variations of noise characteristics and intensities.

Ping Lu, Yanyan Zhang, Jianxiong Chen et al.

We propose a predictive neural network architecture that can be utilized to update reference velocity models as inputs to the full waveform inversion. Deep learning models are explored to augment velocity model building workflows during processing the 3D seismic volume in salt-prone environments. Specifically, a neural network architecture, with 3D convolutional, de-convolutional layers, and 3D max-pooling, is designed to take standard amplitude 3D seismic volumes as an input. Enhanced data augmentations through generative adversarial networks and a weighted loss function enable the network to train with few sparsely annotated slices. Batch normalization is also applied for faster convergence. A 3D probability cube for salt bodies and inclusions is generated through ensembles of predictions from multiple models in order to reduce variance. Velocity models inferred from the proposed networks provide opportunities for FWI forward models to converge faster with an initial condition closer to the true model. In addition, in each iteration step, the probability cubes of salt bodies and inclusions inferred from the proposed networks can be used as a regularization term within the FWI forward modelling, which may result in an improved velocity model estimation while the output of seismic migration can be utilized as an input of the 3D neural network for subsequent iterations.

Lingyang Chu, Zhefeng Wang, Jian Pei et al.

Given a database network where each vertex is associated with a transaction database, we are interested in finding theme communities. Here, a theme community is a cohesive subgraph such that a common pattern is frequent in all transaction databases associated with the vertices in the subgraph. Finding all theme communities from a database network enjoys many novel applications. However, it is challenging since even counting the number of all theme communities in a database network is #P-hard. Inspired by the observation that a theme community shrinks when the length of the pattern increases, we investigate several properties of theme communities and develop TCFI, a scalable algorithm that uses these properties to effectively prune the patterns that cannot form any theme community. We also design TC-Tree, a scalable algorithm that decomposes and indexes theme communities efficiently. Retrieving a ranked list of theme communities from a TC-Tree of hundreds of millions of theme communities takes less than 1 second. Extensive experiments and a case study demonstrate the effectiveness and scalability of TCFI and TC-Tree in discovering and querying meaningful theme communities from large database networks.