Yu Meng

Kai Li, Yupeng Deng, Yunlong Kong et al.

More accurate extraction of invisible building footprints from very-high-resolution (VHR) aerial images relies on roof segmentation and roof-to-footprint offset extraction. Existing methods based on instance segmentation suffer from poor generalization when extended to large-scale data production and fail to achieve low-cost human interaction. This prompt paradigm inspires us to design a promptable framework for roof and offset extraction, and transforms end-to-end algorithms into promptable methods. Within this framework, we propose a novel Offset-Building Model (OBM). Based on prompt prediction, we first discover a common pattern of predicting offsets and tailored Distance-NMS (DNMS) algorithms for offset optimization. To rigorously evaluate the algorithm's capabilities, we introduce a prompt-based evaluation method, where our model reduces offset errors by 16.6\% and improves roof Intersection over Union (IoU) by 10.8\% compared to other models. Leveraging the common patterns in predicting offsets, DNMS algorithms enable models to further reduce offset vector loss by 6.5\%. To further validate the generalization of models, we tested them using a newly proposed test set, Huizhou test set, with over 7,000 manually annotated instance samples. Our algorithms and dataset will be available at https://github.com/likaiucas/OBM.

Xinyu Zhu, Mengzhou Xia, Zhepei Wei et al.

Reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR) is a promising approach for training language models (LMs) on reasoning tasks that elicit emergent long chains of thought (CoTs). Unlike supervised learning, it updates the model using both correct and incorrect samples via policy gradients. To better understand its mechanism, we decompose the learning signal into reinforcing correct responses and penalizing incorrect ones, referred to as Positive and Negative Sample Reinforcement (PSR and NSR), respectively. We train Qwen2.5-Math-7B, Qwen3-4B and Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct on a mathematical reasoning dataset and uncover a surprising result: training with only negative samples -- without reinforcing correct responses -- can be highly effective: it consistently improves performance over the base model across the entire Pass@$k$ spectrum $k$ up to 256), often matching or surpassing PPO and GRPO. In contrast, reinforcing only correct responses improves Pass@1 but degrades performance at higher $k$, due to reduced diversity. These inference-scaling trends highlight that solely penalizing incorrect responses may contribute more to performance than previously recognized. Through gradient analysis, we show that NSR works by suppressing incorrect generations and redistributing probability mass toward other plausible candidates, guided by the model's prior beliefs. It refines the model's existing knowledge rather than introducing entirely new behaviors. Building on this insight, we propose a simple variant of the RL objective that upweights NSR, and show that it consistently improves overall Pass@$k$ performance on MATH, AIME 2025, and AMC23. Our code is available at https://github.com/TianHongZXY/RLVR-Decomposed.

Yu Meng, Mengzhou Xia, Danqi Chen · princeton

Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) is a widely used offline preference optimization algorithm that reparameterizes reward functions in reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) to enhance simplicity and training stability. In this work, we propose SimPO, a simpler yet more effective approach. The effectiveness of SimPO is attributed to a key design: using the average log probability of a sequence as the implicit reward. This reward formulation better aligns with model generation and eliminates the need for a reference model, making it more compute and memory efficient. Additionally, we introduce a target reward margin to the Bradley-Terry objective to encourage a larger margin between the winning and losing responses, further improving the algorithm's performance. We compare SimPO to DPO and its latest variants across various state-of-the-art training setups, including both base and instruction-tuned models such as Mistral, Llama 3, and Gemma 2. We evaluate on extensive chat-based evaluation benchmarks, including AlpacaEval 2, MT-Bench, and Arena-Hard. Our results demonstrate that SimPO consistently and significantly outperforms existing approaches without substantially increasing response length. Specifically, SimPO outperforms DPO by up to 6.4 points on AlpacaEval 2 and by up to 7.5 points on Arena-Hard. Our top-performing model, built on Gemma-2-9B-it, achieves a 72.4% length-controlled win rate on AlpacaEval 2, a 59.1% win rate on Arena-Hard, and ranks 1st on Chatbot Arena among <10B models with real user votes.

Chenhao Wang, Yingrui Ji, Yu Meng et al.

Extracting small objects from remote sensing imagery plays a vital role in various applications, including urban planning, environmental monitoring, and disaster management. While current research primarily focuses on small object detection, instance segmentation for small objects remains underexplored, with no dedicated datasets available. This gap stems from the technical challenges and high costs of pixel-level annotation for small objects. While the Segment Anything Model (SAM) demonstrates impressive zero-shot generalization, its performance on small-object segmentation deteriorates significantly, largely due to the coarse 1/16 feature resolution that causes severe loss of fine spatial details. To this end, we propose SOPSeg, a prompt-based framework specifically designed for small object segmentation in remote sensing imagery. It incorporates a region-adaptive magnification strategy to preserve fine-grained details, and employs a customized decoder that integrates edge prediction and progressive refinement for accurate boundary delineation. Moreover, we introduce a novel prompting mechanism tailored to the oriented bounding boxes widely adopted in remote sensing applications. SOPSeg outperforms existing methods in small object segmentation and facilitates efficient dataset construction for remote sensing tasks. We further construct a comprehensive small object instance segmentation dataset based on SODA-A, and will release both the model and dataset to support future research.

Jaida Gao, Calab Su, Etai Miller et al.

The evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) stands as a pivotal force shaping our society, finding applications across diverse domains such as education, sustainability, and safety. Leveraging AI within mobile applications makes it easily accessible to the public, catalyzing its transformative potential. In this paper, we present a methodology for the rapid development of AI agent applications using the development platform provided by MIT App Inventor. To demonstrate its efficacy, we share the development journey of three distinct mobile applications: SynchroNet for fostering sustainable communities; ProductiviTeams for addressing procrastination; and iHELP for enhancing community safety. All three applications seamlessly integrate a spectrum of generative AI features, leveraging OpenAI APIs. Furthermore, we offer insights gleaned from overcoming challenges in integrating diverse tools and AI functionalities, aiming to inspire young developers to join our efforts in building practical AI agent applications.