Dense causal attention remains expensive at long context even when implemented with highly optimized exact kernels. We study BF1, a deterministic block-aligned dyadic sparse-attention route that combines a small exact local neighborhood, a global first block, and logarithmically spaced historical blocks. The route is related to prior log-sparse and dilated attention patterns; our contribution is a correctness-gated pretrained-model retrofit, a matched topology-control study, and a systems characterization that connects per-layer sparsity to whole-model latency. For fixed block width, every converted layer uses O(n log n) selected token interactions and has O(log n) graph communication depth. On an NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPU, an optimized BF16 implementation crosses dense attention between 2K and 4K tokens and reaches a 10.91x per-layer prefill speedup at 32K. Retrofitting eight of 28 Qwen3-0.6B attention layers lowers warm whole-model time to first token by 7.7%, 11.3%, and 15.3% at 8K, 16K, and 32K, respectively, while the remaining dense layers keep the complete model asymptotically quadratic. Under a matched 1,000-step, 16.384M-token adaptation protocol, BF1 ranks first across three training seeds: mean report perplexity is 1.68639 versus 1.69154 for a matched static-random nonlocal graph, 1.69258 for dense continued training, and 1.81505 for equal-budget local sliding. At seed 1234, the packed-report paired interval places Dense-CT 0.3169-0.4055% above BF1 and static-random graph 17 0.2441-0.3642% above BF1. These results establish BF1 as a reproducible sparse operator and selective retrofit primitive with real long-context systems value. This paper evaluates numerical correctness, selected-interaction scaling, kernel performance, partial-model inference, and matched next-token language modeling.
LifeSciBench is introduced, a benchmark of 750 expert-authored tasks designed to evaluate whether language models can handle realistic life science research work, with each constituent task paired with a human expert-written rubric.
Amelia Liu, Andrew Ho, Anne Marie Droste et al.· bioRxiv· 2 citations
A rapidly advancing precision-therapy pipeline-including antisense oligonucleotides to upregulate the intact allele, AAV-based gene replacement, CRISPR-mediated transcriptional activation, epigenetic modulators, and rational pathway-targeted small molecules-offers realistic prospects for disease modification.
Autistic children experience disproportionately high rates of anxiety, yet common interventions such as cognitive behavioural therapy and traditional mindfulness practices may be less effective due to their cognitive and abstract demands. Yoga nidra, a form of guided meditation using concrete visualisations and breath awareness, may offer a more accessible alternative. This mixed methods study evaluated the feasibility and pilot efficacy of a co-designed six-week online yoga nidra intervention targeting anxiety in autistic children aged 8-14 years. Neurophysiological and psychological data were collected from 13 participants using parent- and self-reported measures of anxiety (ASC-ASD), intolerance of uncertainty (IUSC), and emotion dysregulation (EDI), alongside heart rate variability (HRV). Notably, the cohort included a minimally speaking child, which demonstrates the potential for the intervention to extend to autistic children with language support needs, a group who are often underrepresented in similar research. Results indicated no statistically significant changes in anxiety over time; however, medium effect sizes were observed in self- (Hedge's g = 0.55) and parent-reported anxiety (Hedge's g = 0.45), with three participants moving from clinically significant to non-significant anxiety levels post-intervention. Additionally, intolerance of uncertainty and emotion dysregulation demonstrated small to medium effect size reductions (IUSC, Hedge's g = 0.50; EDI-Reactivity, Hedge's g = 0.55; EDI-Dysphoria, Hedge's g = 0.25), suggesting potential benefits of yoga nidra in these areas. Greater attendance was significantly associated with self-reported reductions in anxiety (ASC-ASD-SR, r = .757, p < .05), but not the other outcome measures. Unexpectedly, HRV outcomes indicated reduced autonomic functioning post-intervention. Additionally, qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with three child participants and their mothers from the study were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, revealing five key themes of their experience: Thinking About the Body is Hard; We Want More; Homework Sucks; Making Mindfulness Concrete; and On-Screen and At Home is Convenient. While the online format was appreciated for its accessibility, challenges with adherence and scheduling highlighted the need for more flexible delivery models. This study advances upon prior research by being the first to develop a co-designed yoga nidra intervention specifically for autistic children. Findings support the feasibility of yoga nidra as a complementary intervention for autistic children and suggest directions for future research, including larger trials and further co-design with the autistic community.
Tundi Loftus, Shu H Yau, Sophia Soares et al.· Research in Developmental Di...· 1 citation
TestifAI, a deep learning testing framework for efficient and accurate estimation of robustness against combinations of perturbations, is proposed and partial model tomography is introduced, a novel approach to reconstructing model behaviour in a multi-perturbation space from tests that apply only a small number of perturbations.
Arooj Arif, T. Hartung, E. Botoeva et al.· 1 citation
Large language models have significantly enriched the toolkit for computational humor research, particularly in the automated generation of jokes and puns. A key innovation, contextual embedding vectors, offers new opportunities to revisit and refine earlier hypotheses. Notably, Petrovic and Matthews (2013) proposed a joke generation model based on the scheme"I like my X like I like my Y, Z"(e.g."I like my ice like I like my dreams, crushed"). They suggested that joke hilarity increases with: a) frequent association of Z with X and Y, b) rarity of Z, c) ambiguity of Z, and d) meaning distance between X and Y. Building on this, Winters et al. (2019) proposed a set of metrics, based on Google Ngrams and Word2Vector. In this work, three out of their five metrics are revisited with word embeddings: obviousness, compatibility, and comparison. Another measure, symmetry, defined as closeness of Z to both X and Y, is introduced here for the first time. Two models were used to collect the embedding vectors (OpenAI text-embedding-3-small and MiniLM all-MiniLM-L6-v2) on three datasets: JokeJudger, Expunations, and rJokes. The last two datasets, Expunations, and rJokes, were expanded by adding paired sentences that captured the ambiguous expression at the core of each joke in its two different meanings. Results revealed that models trained on the proposed metrics performed poorly in predicting humor ratings: on JokeJudger, the best model achieved 57.1% accuracy, below the 61.5% baseline, while performance on Expunations and rJokes was even lower. Nevertheless, the symmetry metric seems consistently associated with higher-rated jokes, suggesting it may capture a necessary -though not sufficient- property of humor.
Large Language Models show potential in their diagnostic accuracy and consequent ability to reduce clinician burden, and may provide the greatest benefit when used to optimise referral quality at source, improving both clinician and potentially LLM triage downstream.
K. Surendran, I. Aziz, Glyndwr Jenkins· Current Surgery Reports· 0 citations
A new method for surgically removing training examples from a model reveals that as datasets grow, the link between what a model learns and what it produces dissolves.
