Namrata Banerji

Namrata Banerji, Tanya Berger-Wolf

Accurate multistep forecasting of node-level attributes on dynamic graphs is critical for applications ranging from financial trust networks to biological networks. Existing spatiotemporal graph neural networks typically assume a static adjacency matrix. In this work, we propose an end-to-end dynamic edge-biased spatiotemporal model that ingests a multi-dimensional timeseries of node attributes and a timeseries of adjacency matrices, to predict multiple future steps of node attributes. At each time step, our transformer-based model injects the given adjacency as an adaptable attention bias, allowing the model to focus on relevant neighbors as the graph evolves. We further deploy a masked node-time pretraining objective that primes the encoder to reconstruct missing features, and train with scheduled sampling and a horizon-weighted loss to mitigate compounding error over long horizons. Unlike prior work, our model accommodates dynamic graphs that vary across input samples, enabling forecasting in multi-system settings such as brain networks across different subjects, financial systems in different contexts, or evolving social systems. Empirical results demonstrate that our method consistently outperforms strong baselines on Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE).

Jenna Kline, Maksim Kholiavchenko, Samuel Stevens et al.

A comprehensive understanding of animal behavior ecology depends on scalable approaches to quantify and interpret complex, multidimensional behavioral patterns. Traditional field observations are often limited in scope, time-consuming, and labor-intensive, hindering the assessment of behavioral responses across landscapes. To address this, we present kabr-tools (Kenyan Animal Behavior Recognition Tools), an open-source package for automated multi-species behavioral monitoring. This framework integrates drone-based video with machine learning systems to extract behavioral, social, and spatial metrics from wildlife footage. Our pipeline leverages object detection, tracking, and behavioral classification systems to generate key metrics, including time budgets, behavioral transitions, social interactions, habitat associations, and group composition dynamics. Compared to ground-based methods, drone-based observations significantly improved behavioral granularity, reducing visibility loss by 15% and capturing more transitions with higher accuracy and continuity. We validate kabr-tools through three case studies, analyzing 969 behavioral sequences, surpassing the capacity of traditional methods for data capture and annotation. We found that, like Plains zebras, vigilance in Grevy's zebras decreases with herd size, but, unlike Plains zebras, habitat has a negligible impact. Plains and Grevy's zebras exhibit strong behavioral inertia, with rare transitions to alert behaviors and observed spatial segregation between Grevy's zebras, Plains zebras, and giraffes in mixed-species herds. By enabling automated behavioral monitoring at scale, kabr-tools offers a powerful tool for ecosystem-wide studies, advancing conservation, biodiversity research, and ecological monitoring.

Elizabeth G. Campolongo, Yuan-Tang Chou, Ekaterina Govorkova et al.

Scientific discoveries are often made by finding a pattern or object that was not predicted by the known rules of science. Oftentimes, these anomalous events or objects that do not conform to the norms are an indication that the rules of science governing the data are incomplete, and something new needs to be present to explain these unexpected outliers. The challenge of finding anomalies can be confounding since it requires codifying a complete knowledge of the known scientific behaviors and then projecting these known behaviors on the data to look for deviations. When utilizing machine learning, this presents a particular challenge since we require that the model not only understands scientific data perfectly but also recognizes when the data is inconsistent and out of the scope of its trained behavior. In this paper, we present three datasets aimed at developing machine learning-based anomaly detection for disparate scientific domains covering astrophysics, genomics, and polar science. We present the different datasets along with a scheme to make machine learning challenges around the three datasets findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR). Furthermore, we present an approach that generalizes to future machine learning challenges, enabling the possibility of large, more compute-intensive challenges that can ultimately lead to scientific discovery.