Showing 1–50 of 125 results for author: Rehman, A

Serverless platform driven CPU loadbalancing

Authors: Abdul Rehman

Abstract: Serverless platforms maintain a global view of function invocations and resource utilization, yet existing systems largely restrict CPU scheduling decisions to the operating system scheduler. This paper presents a serverless platform-driven CPU load balancing framework that enables the control plane to directly influence CPU scheduling through a custom Linux scheduler built on SchedExt(SCX). The p… ▽ More Serverless platforms maintain a global view of function invocations and resource utilization, yet existing systems largely restrict CPU scheduling decisions to the operating system scheduler. This paper presents a serverless platform-driven CPU load balancing framework that enables the control plane to directly influence CPU scheduling through a custom Linux scheduler built on SchedExt(SCX). The proposed scheduler introduces configurable scheduling domains and a shared interface that allows the control plane to assign functions to domains based on their historical inter-arrival times. Within each domain, a single-queue load-balancing strategy combined with a virtual-time prioritization policy improves task placement while reducing interference from busy-polling tasks. Results show that an eight-domain configuration achieves the best trade-off, reducing system energy consumption by approximately 15% while increasing invocation cost by only 5%. Under heavily loaded workloads, the proposed scheduler also reduces request latency by up to 50% compared to the default Linux Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS). These results demonstrate that exposing CPU scheduling decisions to the serverless control plane can improve both energy efficiency and workload performance while preserving scheduling flexibility. △ Less

Submitted 6 August, 2026; originally announced August 2026.

When Less Is More: A Controlled Benchmark of Lightweight CNNs for Satellite Land-Cover Segmentation on DeepGlobe

Authors: Atiq Ur Rehman, Joseph Michael Donovan

Abstract: High-resolution satellite imagery is the backbone of good land-cover classification, and without that, environmental monitoring, urban planning, and sustainable resource management all fall short. Deep learning architectures perform well in semantic segmentation, but the efficiency-accuracy trade-off across classical convolutional encoders is not well quantified under controlled, reproducible cond… ▽ More High-resolution satellite imagery is the backbone of good land-cover classification, and without that, environmental monitoring, urban planning, and sustainable resource management all fall short. Deep learning architectures perform well in semantic segmentation, but the efficiency-accuracy trade-off across classical convolutional encoders is not well quantified under controlled, reproducible conditions. This study compares five architectures VGG16, MobileNetV2, InceptionV3, AlexNet, and CNN on the DeepGlobe Land Cover Classification dataset using three progressively optimized iterations to isolate regularisation, transfer learning, and architectural depth. To ensure performance differentials reflect architectural properties, all experiments used identical preprocessing, hyperparameter, and training protocols without data augmentation or class-imbalance correction. At 24.98 MB, MobileNetV2_v1 had the highest overall accuracy (0.7906) and mean Intersection over Union (0.4625), outperforming deeper alternatives like InceptionV3_v2 (125.17 MB, accuracy 0.7610) and VGG16_v2 (71.13 MB, accuracy 0.7653). Class-wise analysis showed strength in urban, agricultural, and water categories, but rangeland-barren confusion showed that architectural optimization alone cannot optimize spectrally similar minority classes. Strong spatial generalization and crisp boundary delineation were confirmed on held-out test imagery, validating operational applicability. These results show that lightweight, transfer-learned models can match or outperform deeper models in resource-constrained remote-sensing environments, enabling scalable land-cover mapping. △ Less

Submitted 24 July, 2026; originally announced July 2026.

Comments: 18 Figures, 8 Tables & 33 Pages

LLM-Centric Agentic AI for UAV Swarms: Architecture, Enabling Technologies, and Open Problems

Authors: Yousef Emami, Rahim Taheri, Mohammadhossein Homaei, Muhammad Atif Ur Rehman, Mohammad Shojafar

Abstract: Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarms have significant potential for applications such as Search and Rescue (SAR) and environmental monitoring, but their real-world deployment is limited by a lack of situational awareness, intermittent connectivity, and significant cybersecurity risks. Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents a shift from standalone Large Language Model (LLM) toward closed-l… ▽ More Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarms have significant potential for applications such as Search and Rescue (SAR) and environmental monitoring, but their real-world deployment is limited by a lack of situational awareness, intermittent connectivity, and significant cybersecurity risks. Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents a shift from standalone Large Language Model (LLM) toward closed-loop cognitive architectures that integrate perception, memory, reasoning/planning, and action to enable adaptive, goal-directed swarm behavior. Within this framework, Agentic AI provides a unifying structure for autonomous and adaptive swarm operations while expanding the system attack surface compared to conventional AI systems. This paper proposes LLM-Centric Agentic AI for UAV Swarms (LAUS) and reviews key enabling technologies such as onboard and edge computing, 5G/6G connectivity, multimodal intelligence, and cybersecurity mechanisms, and analyzes threats such as Priority Manipulation Attacks (PMA) that can distort decision-making and degrade network performance. Finally, it identifies open research challenges, including hallucination-resistant reasoning, onboard LLM deployment under SWaP constraints, and standardized security benchmarks for perception-reasoning attacks in agentic UAV systems. △ Less

Submitted 5 July, 2026; originally announced July 2026.

Comments: 8 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables

MSC Class: 53-01 ACM Class: C.2

From Triggers to Emotions: A CPM-Grounded Appraisal Multi-Agent for Dynamic Emotional Evolution in Persona-Based Dialogue

Authors: Jingyao Cai, Shuaijun Liu, Abdul Rehman, Yutong Guo, Qin Tian, Thomas Dolby, Sue Green, Chantel Cox, Xiaosong Yang

Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) have substantially advanced persona-based dialogue agents for emotion-sensitive role simulation in healthcare, education, counseling, customer service, and interactive storytelling. However, two related lines of work leave a key gap. Persona-based dialogue systems often encode emotions as static traits or surface-level stylistic cues, and affective dialogue research ha… ▽ More Large Language Models (LLMs) have substantially advanced persona-based dialogue agents for emotion-sensitive role simulation in healthcare, education, counseling, customer service, and interactive storytelling. However, two related lines of work leave a key gap. Persona-based dialogue systems often encode emotions as static traits or surface-level stylistic cues, and affective dialogue research has largely focused on empathetic response generation toward users rather than modeling the agent persona's own evolving emotional state. As a result, trigger-driven emotional evolution within a character remains underexplored. To address this limitation, we draw inspiration from the Component Process Model (CPM), a psychological theory that views emotion as a dynamic process shaped by the appraisal of external events. We propose CPM-MultiAgent, a CPM-grounded emotion evolution multi-agent framework for supporting emotional changes in persona-based dialogue. Instead of treating a character's emotion as a fixed attribute, CPM-MultiAgent represents it as a latent state that is continuously reshaped by dialogue triggers. Through affective trigger extraction, CPM-based collaborative appraisal, and emotion state updating, the framework enables more emotionally consistent role simulation in multi-turn interactions.Experiments with baseline comparisons, ablation studies, human evaluation, and case analyses demonstrate that CPM-MultiAgent effectively models dynamic emotional evolution in emotionally sensitive role-simulation settings. △ Less

Submitted 8 July, 2026; originally announced July 2026.

Unveiling Public Opinion: A Study of Sentiment Analysis Using LSTM and Traditional Models

Authors: Atiq Ur Rehman

Abstract: In this age of social media, sites like Twitter have become meeting places for people to share their views and feelings on a wide range of issues and current events as they unfold in real time. Sentiment analysis, a critical application of NLP, has become indispensable due to the massive influx of user-generated content, enabling the extraction of meaningful insights from the opinions and emotions… ▽ More In this age of social media, sites like Twitter have become meeting places for people to share their views and feelings on a wide range of issues and current events as they unfold in real time. Sentiment analysis, a critical application of NLP, has become indispensable due to the massive influx of user-generated content, enabling the extraction of meaningful insights from the opinions and emotions expressed in textual data. Sentiment analysis on Twitter employs sophisticated computational techniques to categorize tweets into positive, negative, or neutral sentiments. This method not only examines individual expressions but also analyzes vast databases related to specific subjects or events. By spotting these emotions, machine learning models help improve public opinion interpretation and trend forecasting. This paper examines the effectiveness of various machine learning and deep learning approaches. Designed for this use, the system evaluates logistic regression, random forest, naïve bayes, gradient boosting, and LSTM networks, among other algorithms applied in sentiment classification. This work identifies the optimal sentiment analysis model using a Kaggle Twitter dataset that has been preprocessed through tokenization, lemmatization, and stopword elimination. Emphasizing the better performance of the LSTM approach, the model attained a training accuracy of 90.98%, a testing accuracy of 80.00%, and a micro-average ROC- AUC score of 0.92. These results show that the model outperforms conventional machine learning techniques in capturing contextual and sequential textual aspects. △ Less

Submitted 8 July, 2026; originally announced July 2026.

Comments: 6 pages, 5 figures. Published in the Proceedings of the 2025 IEEE Conference on Computing, Communication, and Data Engineering (C-CODE 2025)

Journal ref: Proceedings of the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Computing, Communication and Data Engineering (C-CODE), 2025

Learning Structurally Consistent Representations for Multi-View Radar Semantic Segmentation

Authors: Ali Zia, Muhammad Umer Ramzan, Abdelwahed Khamis, Usman Ali, Abdul Rehman

Abstract: Radar sensors provide reliable perception under adverse weather and lighting conditions, but their sparse, noisy, and weakly semantic measurements make dense semantic segmentation challenging. Most existing radar segmentation methods rely on grid-based encodings and pairwise interactions, which struggle to capture the higher-order relational structure formed by multiple radar returns from the same… ▽ More Radar sensors provide reliable perception under adverse weather and lighting conditions, but their sparse, noisy, and weakly semantic measurements make dense semantic segmentation challenging. Most existing radar segmentation methods rely on grid-based encodings and pairwise interactions, which struggle to capture the higher-order relational structure formed by multiple radar returns from the same physical object. We introduce a unified higher-order structural alignment framework for multi-view radar segmentation. The proposed method refines radar feature representations using learnable hypergraphs to capture higher-order dependencies among spatially related responses. To ensure consistency across heterogeneous radar projections, we further align view-specific features using Unbalanced Optimal Transport (UOT), enabling correspondence-free alignment under varying measurement densities and partial observations. An adaptive attention mechanism then fuses complementary radar views while emphasising structurally informative responses under sparsity and noise. The resulting architecture learns structurally consistent representations across Range Angle (RA), Range Doppler (RD), and Angle Doppler (AD) views and is trained using supervised segmentation together with cross-view consistency regularisation. Experiments on the CARRADA and RADIal benchmarks demonstrate consistent improvements over strong radar-specific baselines, achieving 63.8% mIoU on CARRADA and 83.4% mIoU on RADIal, improving the previous best methods by +1.7 and +2.3 mIoU, respectively. These results highlight the importance of higher-order relational modelling for robust radar perception. △ Less

Submitted 30 June, 2026; originally announced June 2026.

Learning Topology-Aware Representations via Test-Time Adaptation for Anomaly Segmentation

Authors: Ali Zia, Usman Ali, Abdul Rehman, Umer Ramzan, Kang Han, Muhammad Faheem, Shahnawaz Qureshi, Wei Xiang

Abstract: Test-time adaptation (TTA) has emerged as a promising paradigm for mitigating distribution shifts in deep models. However, existing TTA approaches for anomaly segmentation remain limited by their reliance on pixel-level heuristics, such as confidence thresholding or entropy minimisation, which fail to preserve structural consistency under noise and texture variation. Moreover, they typically treat… ▽ More Test-time adaptation (TTA) has emerged as a promising paradigm for mitigating distribution shifts in deep models. However, existing TTA approaches for anomaly segmentation remain limited by their reliance on pixel-level heuristics, such as confidence thresholding or entropy minimisation, which fail to preserve structural consistency under noise and texture variation. Moreover, they typically treat anomaly maps as flat intensity fields, ignoring the higher-order spatial relationships that characterise complex defect geometries. We introduce TopoTTA (Topological Test-Time Adaptation), a novel framework that integrates persistent homology, a tool from topological data analysis, into the TTA pipeline to enforce geometric and structural coherence during adaptation. By applying multi-level cubical complex filtration to anomaly score maps, TopoTTA derives robust topological pseudo-labels that guide a lightweight test-time classifier, enhancing segmentation quality without retraining the backbone model. The approach avoids reliance on method-specific raw-score thresholding for mask binarisation, preserves connectivity, and generalises across both 2D and 3D modalities. Extensive experiments across six standard benchmarks (MVTec AD, VisA, Real-IAD, MVTec 3D-AD, AnomalyShapeNet, and MVTec LOCO) demonstrate an average 15% F1 improvement over state-of-the-art unsupervised anomaly detection and segmentation methods, with the largest gains on anomalies exhibiting complex geometric or structural variations. These findings suggest that integrating topological reasoning into test-time adaptation provides a principled route to structure-aware generalisation, bridging the gap between geometric learning and robust adaptation. △ Less

Submitted 26 June, 2026; originally announced June 2026.

Multilingual Hematology Visual Question Answering Dataset

Authors: Hajra Malik, Hafiza Tooba Aftab, Abdul Rehman, Mohsen Ali, Waqas Sultani

Abstract: Vision Language Models (VLMs) have shown promising capabilities in medical image analysis by jointly understanding visual and textual information for tasks such as Visual Question Answering. However, existing hematology vision-language resources remain predominantly English centric, limiting their applicability in multilingual healthcare environments. This challenge is releveant generally to South… ▽ More Vision Language Models (VLMs) have shown promising capabilities in medical image analysis by jointly understanding visual and textual information for tasks such as Visual Question Answering. However, existing hematology vision-language resources remain predominantly English centric, limiting their applicability in multilingual healthcare environments. This challenge is releveant generally to South Asia and specifically to Pakistan, where Urdu is widely used despite healthcare information and digital medical systems being largely dependent on English. To investigate this gap, we conducted a survey among healthcare professionals, which revealed substantial language mismatches between clinical documentation and patient communication, emphasizing the need for multilingual healthcare technologies. To address this limitation, we introduce WBCMor VQA, a clinically validated bilingual English, Urdu morphology aware VQA benchmark for leukemia and normal white blood cell analysis. The benchmark is constructed using morphology-aware annotations from LeukemiaAttri and WBCAtt datasets and supported by a domain specific Urdu hematology dictionary to ensure linguistic consistency and clinical correctness. The final benchmark contains 110K bilingual question answer pairs serving as VQA annotations for 20K leukemic and normal single-cell images. Furthermore, we establish baseline performance by evaluating multiple open-source VLMs on the proposed benchmark. The proposed resource aims to facilitate the development of accessible and clinically relevant AI systems for multilingual healthcare environments. △ Less

Submitted 23 June, 2026; originally announced June 2026.

Comments: Under Review

Critic-Guided Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Reasoning for Reliable Mathematical Problem Solving

Authors: Muhammad Talha Sharif, Abdul Rehman

Abstract: Recent Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown impressive reasoning abilities; but they are still susceptible to hallucinations, intermediate reasoning mistakes, and unreliable reasoning results in complex mathematical reasoning problems. In this study, we introduce a critic-based heterogeneous multi-agent approach to improve the dependability of mathematical reasoning. This framework incorporates… ▽ More Recent Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown impressive reasoning abilities; but they are still susceptible to hallucinations, intermediate reasoning mistakes, and unreliable reasoning results in complex mathematical reasoning problems. In this study, we introduce a critic-based heterogeneous multi-agent approach to improve the dependability of mathematical reasoning. This framework incorporates several LLM agents of different specialties and employs a critic-driven adaptive learning system to assess and guide the reasoning process based on intermediate feedback. The system adopts a generator-validator framework, with the validator not only determining correctness but also offering critiques to guide regeneration of solutions. This allows for adaptive error correction and prevents error cascading. Our experiments on the GSM8K benchmark show that the proposed method achieves up to 13% accuracy improvement over single-shot and non-critic models. Additionally, findings suggest that heterogeneity and critique reduce the need for large models, allowing smaller models to perform on par. Ablation studies reveal the main performance gains are due to the critic-based feedback loop and not model size. In summary, the proposed approach showcases the benefits of combining heterogeneous multi-agent collaboration and critique to obtain reliable and interpretable reasoning systems. △ Less

Submitted 4 June, 2026; originally announced June 2026.

Comments: 6 pages

SolarFCD: A Large-Scale Dataset and Benchmark for Solar Fault Classification in Photovoltaic Systems

Authors: Misbah Ijaz, Saif Ur Rehman Khan, Abd Ur Rehman, Arooj Zaib, Sebastian Vollmer, Andreas Dengel, Muhammad Nabeel Asim

Abstract: The increasing global deployment of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems needs robust, scalable, and automated inspection technologies capable of detecting a wide range of panel flaws under a variety of operating situations. The lack of large-scale, multi-modal, publicly available annotated datasets is a major obstacle preventing advancement in this field. We introduce SolarFCD, an extensive dataset of… ▽ More The increasing global deployment of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems needs robust, scalable, and automated inspection technologies capable of detecting a wide range of panel flaws under a variety of operating situations. The lack of large-scale, multi-modal, publicly available annotated datasets is a major obstacle preventing advancement in this field. We introduce SolarFCD, an extensive dataset of solar panel defects created by methodically combining and reconciling three publicly accessible datasets covering two imaging modalities: RGB/Drone images and Thermal Infrared. The dataset consist of 4,435 images arranged under four unified defect classes such as: healthy images, Surface Obstruction, structural fault, and electrical fault. The dataset was divided into training, validation, and test splits at an 80:10:10 ratio through methodical label mapping, near-duplicate removal, and targeted augmentation of minority classes. Sixteen classification architectures from five design families were trained and assessed on the dataset to provide repeatable benchmark baselines. With an accuracy of 86.68%, precision of 88.65%, recall of 88.62%, and F1-score of 88.17%, ResNet101V2 performed the best overall. Per-class results showed balanced detection across all four defect categories within a narrow performance band of less than 1.2 percentage points. To promote open and repeatable research in automated PV inspection and solar energy operations and maintenance, the dataset, annotation files, and baseline code are made openly available. △ Less

Submitted 26 April, 2026; originally announced April 2026.

Neural posterior estimation of the neutrino direction in IceCube using transformer-encoded normalizing flows on the sphere

Authors: R. Abbasi, M. Ackermann, J. Adams, J. A. Aguilar, M. Ahlers, J. M. Alameddine, S. Ali, N. M. Amin, K. Andeen, C. Argüelles, Y. Ashida, S. Athanasiadou, S. N. Axani, R. Babu, X. Bai, A. Balagopal V., S. W. Barwick, V. Basu, R. Bay, J. J. Beatty, J. Becker Tjus, P. Behrens, J. Beise, C. Bellenghi, S. Benkel , et al. (389 additional authors not shown)

Abstract: IceCube is a cubic-kilometer-scale neutrino detector located at the geographic South Pole. A precise directional reconstruction of IceCube neutrinos is vital for associations with astronomical objects. In this context, we discuss neural posterior estimation of the neutrino direction via a transformer encoder that maps to a normalizing flow on the 2-sphere. It achieves a new state-of-the-art angula… ▽ More IceCube is a cubic-kilometer-scale neutrino detector located at the geographic South Pole. A precise directional reconstruction of IceCube neutrinos is vital for associations with astronomical objects. In this context, we discuss neural posterior estimation of the neutrino direction via a transformer encoder that maps to a normalizing flow on the 2-sphere. It achieves a new state-of-the-art angular resolution for the two main event morphologies in IceCube - tracks and showers - while being significantly faster than traditional B-spline-based likelihood reconstructions. All-sky scans can be performed within seconds rather than hours, and take constant computation time, regardless of whether the posterior extent is arc-minutes or spans the whole sky. We utilize a combination of $C^2$-smooth rational-quadratic splines, scale transformations and rotations to define a novel spherical normalizing-flow distribution whose parameters are predicted as a whole as the output of the transformer encoder. We test several structural choices diverting from the vanilla transformer architecture. In particular, we find dual residual streams, nonlinear QKV projection and a separate class token with its own cross-attention processing to boost test-time performance. The angular resolution for both showers and tracks improves substantially over the whole trained energy range from 100 GeV to 100 PeV. At 100 TeV deposited energy, for example, the median angular resolution improves by a factor of $1.3$ for throughgoing tracks, by a factor of $1.7$ for showers and by a factor of $2.5$ for starting tracks compared to state-of-the art likelihood reconstructions based on B-splines. While previous machine-learning (ML) efforts have managed to obtain competitive shower resolutions, this is the first time an ML-based method outperforms likelihood-based muon reconstructions above 100 GeV. △ Less

Submitted 21 April, 2026; originally announced April 2026.

Low Light Image Enhancement Challenge at NTIRE 2026

Authors: George Ciubotariu, Sharif S M A, Abdur Rehman, Fayaz Ali Dharejo, Rizwan Ali Naqvi, Marcos V. Conde, Radu Timofte, Zhi Jin, Hongjun Wu, Wenjian Zhang, Chang Ye, Xunpeng Yi, Qinglong Yan, Yibing Zhang, Zaynab Ali, Saiprasad Meesiyawar, Varda I Pattanshetty, Varsha I Pattanshetty, Nikhil Akalwadi, Padmashree Desai, Ramesh Ashok Tabib, Uma Mudenagudi, Hao Yang, Ruikun Zhang, Liyuan Pan , et al. (68 additional authors not shown)

Abstract: This paper presents a comprehensive review of the NTIRE 2026 Low Light Image Enhancement Challenge, highlighting the proposed solutions and final results. The objective of this challenge is to identify effective networks capable of producing clearer and visually compelling images in diverse and challenging conditions by learning representative visual cues with the purpose of restoring information… ▽ More This paper presents a comprehensive review of the NTIRE 2026 Low Light Image Enhancement Challenge, highlighting the proposed solutions and final results. The objective of this challenge is to identify effective networks capable of producing clearer and visually compelling images in diverse and challenging conditions by learning representative visual cues with the purpose of restoring information loss due to low-contrast and noisy images. A total of 195 participants registered for the first track and 153 for the second track of the competition, and 22 teams ultimately submitted valid entries. This paper thoroughly evaluates the state-of-the-art advances in (joint denoising and) low-light image enhancement, showcasing the significant progress in the field, while leveraging samples of our novel dataset. △ Less

Submitted 14 May, 2026; v1 submitted 19 April, 2026; originally announced April 2026.

Geometry-Aware Semantic Reasoning for Training Free Video Anomaly Detection

Authors: Ali Zia, Usman Ali, Muhammad Umer Ramzan, Hamza Abid, Abdul Rehman, Wei Xiang

Abstract: Training-free video anomaly detection (VAD) has recently emerged as a scalable alternative to supervised approaches, yet existing methods largely rely on static prompting and geometry-agnostic feature fusion. As a result, anomaly inference is often reduced to shallow similarity matching over Euclidean embeddings, leading to unstable predictions and limited interpretability, especially in complex o… ▽ More Training-free video anomaly detection (VAD) has recently emerged as a scalable alternative to supervised approaches, yet existing methods largely rely on static prompting and geometry-agnostic feature fusion. As a result, anomaly inference is often reduced to shallow similarity matching over Euclidean embeddings, leading to unstable predictions and limited interpretability, especially in complex or hierarchically structured scenes. We introduce MM-VAD, a geometry-aware semantic reasoning framework for training free VAD that reframes anomaly detection as adaptive test-time inference rather than fixed feature comparison. Our approach projects caption-derived scene representations into hyperbolic space to better preserve hierarchical structure and performs anomaly assessment through an adaptive question answering process over a frozen large language model. A lightweight, learnable prompt is optimised at test time using an unsupervised confidence-sparsity objective, enabling context-specific calibration without updating any backbone parameters. To further ground semantic predictions in visual evidence, we incorporate a covariance-aware Mahalanobis refinement that stabilises cross-modal alignment. Across four benchmarks, MM-VAD consistently improves over prior training-free methods, achieving 90.03% AUC on XD-Violence and 83.24%, 96.95%, and 98.81% on UCF-Crime, ShanghaiTech, and UCSD Ped2, respectively. Our results demonstrate that geometry-aware representation and adaptive semantic calibration provide a principled and effective alternative to static Euclidean matching in training-free VAD. △ Less

Submitted 10 March, 2026; originally announced March 2026.

StructDamage:A Large Scale Unified Crack and Surface Defect Dataset for Robust Structural Damage Detection

Authors: Misbah Ijaz, Saif Ur Rehman Khan, Abd Ur Rehman, Sebastian Vollmer, Andreas Dengel, Muhammad Nabeel Asim

Abstract: Automated detection and classification of structural cracks and surface defects is a critical challenge in civil engineering, infrastructure maintenance, and heritage preservation. Recent advances in Computer Vision (CV) and Deep Learning (DL) have significantly improved automatic crack detection. However, these methods rely heavily on large, diverse, and carefully curated datasets that include va… ▽ More Automated detection and classification of structural cracks and surface defects is a critical challenge in civil engineering, infrastructure maintenance, and heritage preservation. Recent advances in Computer Vision (CV) and Deep Learning (DL) have significantly improved automatic crack detection. However, these methods rely heavily on large, diverse, and carefully curated datasets that include various crack types across different surface materials. Many existing public crack datasets lack geographic diversity, surface types, scale, and labeling consistency, making it challenging for trained algorithms to generalize effectively in real world conditions. We provide a novel dataset, StructDamage, a curated collection of approximately 78,093 images spanning nine surface types: walls, tile, stone, road, pavement, deck, concrete, and brick. The dataset was constructed by systematically aggregating, harmonizing, and reannotating images from 32 publicly available datasets covering concrete structures, asphalt pavements, masonry walls, bridges, and historic buildings. All images are organized in a folder level classification hierarchy suitable for training Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Vision Transformers. To highlight the practical value of the dataset, we present baseline classification results using fifteen DL architectures from six model families, with twelve achieving macro F1-scores over 0.96. The best performing model DenseNet201 achieves 98.62% accuracy. The proposed dataset provides a comprehensive and versatile resource suitable for classification tasks. With thorough documentation and a standard structure, it is designed to promote reproducible research and support the development and fair evaluation of robust crack damage detection approaches. △ Less

Submitted 11 March, 2026; originally announced March 2026.

Decoder-Free Distillation for Quantized Image Restoration

Authors: S. M. A. Sharif, Abdur Rehman, Seongwan Kim, Jaeho Lee

Abstract: Quantization-Aware Training (QAT), combined with Knowledge Distillation (KD), holds immense promise for compressing models for edge deployment. However, joint optimization for precision-sensitive image restoration (IR) to recover visual quality from degraded images remains largely underexplored. Directly adapting QAT-KD to low-level vision reveals three critical bottlenecks: teacher-student capaci… ▽ More Quantization-Aware Training (QAT), combined with Knowledge Distillation (KD), holds immense promise for compressing models for edge deployment. However, joint optimization for precision-sensitive image restoration (IR) to recover visual quality from degraded images remains largely underexplored. Directly adapting QAT-KD to low-level vision reveals three critical bottlenecks: teacher-student capacity mismatch, spatial error amplification during decoder distillation, and an optimization "tug-of-war" between reconstruction and distillation losses caused by quantization noise. To tackle these, we introduce Quantization-aware Distilled Restoration (QDR), a framework for edge-deployed IR. QDR eliminates capacity mismatch via FP32 self-distillation and prevents error amplification through Decoder-Free Distillation (DFD), which corrects quantization errors strictly at the network bottleneck. To stabilize the optimization tug-of-war, we propose a Learnable Magnitude Reweighting (LMR) that dynamically balances competing gradients. Finally, we design an Edge-Friendly Model (EFM) featuring a lightweight Learnable Degradation Gating (LDG) to dynamically modulate spatial degradation localization. Extensive experiments across four IR tasks demonstrate that our Int8 model recovers 96.5% of FP32 performance, achieves 442 frames per second (FPS) on an NVIDIA Jetson Orin, and boosts downstream object detection by 16.3 mAP △ Less

Submitted 10 March, 2026; originally announced March 2026.

Omni-C: Compressing Heterogeneous Modalities into a Single Dense Encoder

Authors: Kin Wai Lau, Yasar Abbas Ur Rehman, Lai-Man Po, Pedro Porto Buarque de Gusmão

Abstract: Recent multimodal systems often rely on separate expert modality encoders which cause linearly scaling complexity and computational overhead with added modalities. While unified Omni-models address this via Mixture-of-Expert (MoE) architectures with specialized experts and routing, they still inflate parameter counts and introduce routing overhead. In this paper, we propose Omni-C (Omni-Compress),… ▽ More Recent multimodal systems often rely on separate expert modality encoders which cause linearly scaling complexity and computational overhead with added modalities. While unified Omni-models address this via Mixture-of-Expert (MoE) architectures with specialized experts and routing, they still inflate parameter counts and introduce routing overhead. In this paper, we propose Omni-C (Omni-Compress), a single dense Transformer-based encoder that learns competitive shared representations across heterogeneous modalities--images, audio, and text--through unimodal contrastive pretraining on large-scale unaligned data. By maximizing parameter sharing in the backbone and using lightweight modality-specific projection heads, Omni-C effectively mitigates inter-modality conflicts without requiring MoE, paired supervision, or routing. This design supports efficient deployment on memory-constrained systems via sequential modality processing and low-memory inference, eliminating the need for parallel expert loading or specialized hardware. Experiments show Omni-C achieves performance comparable to expert models in unimodal and cross-model tasks, with modest zero-shot degradation on audio and text that is largely recovered through lightweight linear probing or parameter efficient fine-tuning. The unified architecture substantially reduces inference memory usage compared to multi-encoder baselines, advancing efficient and scalable multimodal learning. △ Less

Submitted 27 February, 2026; originally announced March 2026.

CLOAQ: Combined Logic and Angle Obfuscation for Quantum Circuits

Authors: Vincent Langford, Shihan Zhao, Hongyu Zhang, Ben Dong, Qian Wang, Anees Rehman, Yuntao Liu

Abstract: In the realm of quantum computing, quantum circuits serve as essential depictions of quantum algorithms, which are then compiled into executable operations for quantum computations. Quantum compilers are responsible for converting these algorithmic quantum circuits into versions compatible with specific quantum hardware, thus connecting quantum software with hardware. Nevertheless, untrusted quant… ▽ More In the realm of quantum computing, quantum circuits serve as essential depictions of quantum algorithms, which are then compiled into executable operations for quantum computations. Quantum compilers are responsible for converting these algorithmic quantum circuits into versions compatible with specific quantum hardware, thus connecting quantum software with hardware. Nevertheless, untrusted quantum compilers present notable threats. They have the potential to result in the theft of quantum circuit designs and jeopardize sensitive intellectual property (IP). In this work, we propose CLOAQ, a quantum circuit obfuscation (QCO) approach that hides the logic and the phase angles of selected gates within the obfuscated quantum circuit. To evaluate the effectiveness of CLOAQ, we sample the input state uniformly from the Hilbert space of all qubits, which is more accurate than prior work that use all-|0> inputs. Our results show that CLOAQ benefits from the synergy between logic and phase protections. Compared with prior QCO approaches using only one perspective, the combined method is more resilient to attacks and causes greater functional disruption when the unlocking key is incorrect. △ Less

Submitted 26 February, 2026; originally announced February 2026.

Comments: To appear at ISCAS 2026

GlobalWasteData: A Large-Scale, Integrated Dataset for Robust Waste Classification and Environmental Monitoring

Authors: Misbah Ijaz, Saif Ur Rehman Khan, Abd Ur Rehman, Tayyaba Asif, Sebastian Vollmer, Andreas Dengel, Muhammad Nabeel Asim

Abstract: The growing amount of waste is a problem for the environment that requires efficient sorting techniques for various kinds of waste. An automated waste classification system is used for this purpose. The effectiveness of these Artificial Intelligence (AI) models depends on the quality and accessibility of publicly available datasets, which provide the basis for training and analyzing classification… ▽ More The growing amount of waste is a problem for the environment that requires efficient sorting techniques for various kinds of waste. An automated waste classification system is used for this purpose. The effectiveness of these Artificial Intelligence (AI) models depends on the quality and accessibility of publicly available datasets, which provide the basis for training and analyzing classification algorithms. Although several public waste classification datasets exist, they remain fragmented, inconsistent, and biased toward specific environments. Differences in class names, annotation formats, image conditions, and class distributions make it difficult to combine these datasets or train models that generalize well to real world scenarios. To address these issues, we introduce the GlobalWasteData (GWD) archive, a large scale dataset of 89,807 images across 14 main categories, annotated with 68 distinct subclasses. We compile this novel integrated GWD archive by merging multiple publicly available datasets into a single, unified resource. This GWD archive offers consistent labeling, improved domain diversity, and more balanced class representation, enabling the development of robust and generalizable waste recognition models. Additional preprocessing steps such as quality filtering, duplicate removal, and metadata generation further improve dataset reliability. Overall, this dataset offers a strong foundation for Machine Learning (ML) applications in environmental monitoring, recycling automation, and waste identification, and is publicly available to promote future research and reproducibility. △ Less

Submitted 7 February, 2026; originally announced February 2026.

Enhancing Psychologists' Understanding through Explainable Deep Learning Framework for ADHD Diagnosis

Authors: Abdul Rehman, Ilona Heldal, Jerry Chun-Wei Lin

Abstract: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is challenging to diagnose and requires advanced approaches for reliable and transparent identification and classification. It is characterized by a pattern of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity that is more severe and more frequent than in individuals with a comparable level of development. In this paper… ▽ More Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is challenging to diagnose and requires advanced approaches for reliable and transparent identification and classification. It is characterized by a pattern of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity that is more severe and more frequent than in individuals with a comparable level of development. In this paper, an explainable framework based on a fine-tuned hybrid Deep Neural Network (DNN) and Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) called HyExDNN-RNN model is proposed for ADHD detection, multi-class categorization, and decision interpretation. This framework not only detects ADHD, but also provides interpretable insights into the diagnostic process so that psychologists can better understand and trust the results of the diagnosis. We use the Pearson correlation coefficient for optimal feature selection and machine and deep learning models for experimental analysis and comparison. We use a standardized technique for feature reduction, model selection and interpretation to accurately determine the diagnosis rate and ensure the interpretability of the proposed framework. Our framework provided excellent results on binary classification, with HyExDNN-RNN achieving an F1 score of 99% and 94.2% on multi-class categorization. XAI approaches, in particular SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) and Permutation Feature Importance (PFI), provided important insights into the importance of features and the decision logic of models. By combining AI with human expertise, we aim to bridge the gap between advanced computational techniques and practical psychological applications. These results demonstrate the potential of our framework to assist in ADHD diagnosis and interpretation. △ Less

Submitted 28 January, 2026; originally announced February 2026.

Journal ref: Expert Systems, Wiley, 2024

Test-Time Adaptation for Anomaly Segmentation via Topology-Aware Optimal Transport Chaining

Authors: Ali Zia, Usman Ali, Umer Ramzan, Abdul Rehman, Abdelwahed Khamis, Wei Xiang

Abstract: Deep topological data analysis (TDA) offers a principled framework for capturing structural invariants such as connectivity and cycles that persist across scales, making it a natural fit for anomaly segmentation (AS). Unlike thresholdbased binarisation, which produces brittle masks under distribution shift, TDA allows anomalies to be characterised as disruptions to global structure rather than loc… ▽ More Deep topological data analysis (TDA) offers a principled framework for capturing structural invariants such as connectivity and cycles that persist across scales, making it a natural fit for anomaly segmentation (AS). Unlike thresholdbased binarisation, which produces brittle masks under distribution shift, TDA allows anomalies to be characterised as disruptions to global structure rather than local fluctuations. We introduce TopoOT, a topology-aware optimal transport (OT) framework that integrates multi-filtration persistence diagrams (PDs) with test-time adaptation (TTA). Our key innovation is Optimal Transport Chaining, which sequentially aligns PDs across thresholds and filtrations, yielding geodesic stability scores that identify features consistently preserved across scales. These stabilityaware pseudo-labels supervise a lightweight head trained online with OT-consistency and contrastive objectives, ensuring robust adaptation under domain shift. Across standard 2D and 3D anomaly detection benchmarks, TopoOT achieves state-of-the-art performance, outperforming the most competitive methods by up to +24.1% mean F1 on 2D datasets and +10.2% on 3D AS benchmarks. △ Less

Submitted 28 January, 2026; originally announced January 2026.

Dual-Encoder Transformer-Based Multimodal Learning for Ischemic Stroke Lesion Segmentation Using Diffusion MRI

Authors: Muhammad Usman, Azka Rehman, Muhammad Mutti Ur Rehman, Abd Ur Rehman, Muhammad Umar Farooq

Abstract: Accurate segmentation of ischemic stroke lesions from diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is essential for clinical decision-making and outcome assessment. Diffusion-Weighted Imaging (DWI) and Apparent Diffusion Coefficient (ADC) scans provide complementary information on acute and sub-acute ischemic changes; however, automated lesion delineation remains challenging due to variability in le… ▽ More Accurate segmentation of ischemic stroke lesions from diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is essential for clinical decision-making and outcome assessment. Diffusion-Weighted Imaging (DWI) and Apparent Diffusion Coefficient (ADC) scans provide complementary information on acute and sub-acute ischemic changes; however, automated lesion delineation remains challenging due to variability in lesion appearance. In this work, we study ischemic stroke lesion segmentation using multimodal diffusion MRI from the ISLES 2022 dataset. Several state-of-the-art convolutional and transformer-based architectures, including U-Net variants, Swin-UNet, and TransUNet, are benchmarked. Based on performance, a dual-encoder TransUNet architecture is proposed to learn modality-specific representations from DWI and ADC inputs. To incorporate spatial context, adjacent slice information is integrated using a three-slice input configuration. All models are trained under a unified framework and evaluated using the Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC). Results show that transformer-based models outperform convolutional baselines, and the proposed dual-encoder TransUNet achieves the best performance, reaching a Dice score of 85.4% on the test set. The proposed framework offers a robust solution for automated ischemic stroke lesion segmentation from diffusion MRI. △ Less

Submitted 23 December, 2025; originally announced December 2025.

Anatomy-Guided Representation Learning Using a Transformer-Based Network for Thyroid Nodule Segmentation in Ultrasound Images

Authors: Muhammad Umar Farooq, Abd Ur Rehman, Azka Rehman, Muhammad Usman, Dong-Kyu Chae, Junaid Qadir

Abstract: Accurate thyroid nodule segmentation in ultrasound images is critical for diagnosis and treatment planning. However, ambiguous boundaries between nodules and surrounding tissues, size variations, and the scarcity of annotated ultrasound data pose significant challenges for automated segmentation. Existing deep learning models struggle to incorporate contextual information from the thyroid gland an… ▽ More Accurate thyroid nodule segmentation in ultrasound images is critical for diagnosis and treatment planning. However, ambiguous boundaries between nodules and surrounding tissues, size variations, and the scarcity of annotated ultrasound data pose significant challenges for automated segmentation. Existing deep learning models struggle to incorporate contextual information from the thyroid gland and generalize effectively across diverse cases. To address these challenges, we propose SSMT-Net, a Semi-Supervised Multi-Task Transformer-based Network that leverages unlabeled data to enhance Transformer-centric encoder feature extraction capability in an initial unsupervised phase. In the supervised phase, the model jointly optimizes nodule segmentation, gland segmentation, and nodule size estimation, integrating both local and global contextual features. Extensive evaluations on the TN3K and DDTI datasets demonstrate that SSMT-Net outperforms state-of-the-art methods, with higher accuracy and robustness, indicating its potential for real-world clinical applications. △ Less

Submitted 14 December, 2025; originally announced December 2025.

Uni-Hema: Unified Model for Digital Hematopathology

Authors: Abdul Rehman, Iqra Rasool, Ayisha Imran, Mohsen Ali, Waqas Sultani

Abstract: Digital hematopathology requires cell-level analysis across diverse disease categories, including malignant disorders (e.g., leukemia), infectious conditions (e.g., malaria), and non-malignant red blood cell disorders (e.g., sickle cell disease). Whether single-task, vision-language, WSI-optimized, or single-cell hematology models, these approaches share a key limitation, they cannot provide unifi… ▽ More Digital hematopathology requires cell-level analysis across diverse disease categories, including malignant disorders (e.g., leukemia), infectious conditions (e.g., malaria), and non-malignant red blood cell disorders (e.g., sickle cell disease). Whether single-task, vision-language, WSI-optimized, or single-cell hematology models, these approaches share a key limitation, they cannot provide unified, multi-task, multi-modal reasoning across the complexities of digital hematopathology. To overcome these limitations, we propose Uni-Hema, a multi-task, unified model for digital hematopathology integrating detection, classification, segmentation, morphology prediction, and reasoning across multiple diseases. Uni-Hema leverages 46 publicly available datasets, encompassing over 700K images and 21K question-answer pairs, and is built upon Hema-Former, a multimodal module that bridges visual and textual representations at the hierarchy level for the different tasks (detection, classification, segmentation, morphology, mask language modeling and visual question answer) at different granularity. Extensive experiments demonstrate that Uni-Hema achieves comparable or superior performance to train on a single-task and single dataset models, across diverse hematological tasks, while providing interpretable, morphologically relevant insights at the single-cell level. Our framework establishes a new standard for multi-task and multi-modal digital hematopathology. The code will be made publicly available. △ Less

Submitted 19 November, 2025; v1 submitted 17 November, 2025; originally announced November 2025.

2D_3D Feature Fusion via Cross-Modal Latent Synthesis and Attention Guided Restoration for Industrial Anomaly Detection

Authors: Usman Ali, Ali Zia, Abdul Rehman, Umer Ramzan, Zohaib Hassan, Talha Sattar, Jing Wang, Wei Xiang

Abstract: Industrial anomaly detection (IAD) increasingly benefits from integrating 2D and 3D data, but robust cross-modal fusion remains challenging. We propose a novel unsupervised framework, Multi-Modal Attention-Driven Fusion Restoration (MAFR), which synthesises a unified latent space from RGB images and point clouds using a shared fusion encoder, followed by attention-guided, modality-specific decoder… ▽ More Industrial anomaly detection (IAD) increasingly benefits from integrating 2D and 3D data, but robust cross-modal fusion remains challenging. We propose a novel unsupervised framework, Multi-Modal Attention-Driven Fusion Restoration (MAFR), which synthesises a unified latent space from RGB images and point clouds using a shared fusion encoder, followed by attention-guided, modality-specific decoders. Anomalies are localised by measuring reconstruction errors between input features and their restored counterparts. Evaluations on the MVTec 3D-AD and Eyecandies benchmarks demonstrate that MAFR achieves state-of-the-art results, with a mean I-AUROC of 0.972 and 0.901, respectively. The framework also exhibits strong performance in few-shot learning settings, and ablation studies confirm the critical roles of the fusion architecture and composite loss. MAFR offers a principled approach for fusing visual and geometric information, advancing the robustness and accuracy of industrial anomaly detection. Code is available at https://github.com/adabrh/MAFR △ Less

Submitted 19 October, 2025; originally announced October 2025.

Comments: Accepted at 26th International Conference on Digital Image Computing: Techniques and Applications (DICTA 2025)

When Intelligence Fails: An Empirical Study on Why LLMs Struggle with Password Cracking

Authors: Mohammad Abdul Rehman, Syed Imad Ali Shah, Abbas Anwar, Noor Islam, Hamid Khan

Abstract: The remarkable capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) in natural language understanding and generation have sparked interest in their potential for cybersecurity applications, including password guessing. In this study, we conduct an empirical investigation into the efficacy of pre-trained LLMs for password cracking using synthetic user profiles. Specifically, we evaluate the performance of… ▽ More The remarkable capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) in natural language understanding and generation have sparked interest in their potential for cybersecurity applications, including password guessing. In this study, we conduct an empirical investigation into the efficacy of pre-trained LLMs for password cracking using synthetic user profiles. Specifically, we evaluate the performance of state-of-the-art open-source LLMs such as TinyLLaMA, Falcon-RW-1B, and Flan-T5 by prompting them to generate plausible passwords based on structured user attributes (e.g., name, birthdate, hobbies). Our results, measured using Hit@1, Hit@5, and Hit@10 metrics under both plaintext and SHA-256 hash comparisons, reveal consistently poor performance, with all models achieving less than 1.5% accuracy at Hit@10. In contrast, traditional rule-based and combinator-based cracking methods demonstrate significantly higher success rates. Through detailed analysis and visualization, we identify key limitations in the generative reasoning of LLMs when applied to the domain-specific task of password guessing. Our findings suggest that, despite their linguistic prowess, current LLMs lack the domain adaptation and memorization capabilities required for effective password inference, especially in the absence of supervised fine-tuning on leaked password datasets. This study provides critical insights into the limitations of LLMs in adversarial contexts and lays the groundwork for future efforts in secure, privacy-preserving, and robust password modeling. △ Less

Submitted 31 December, 2025; v1 submitted 17 October, 2025; originally announced October 2025.

From Flows to Words: Can Zero-/Few-Shot LLMs Detect Network Intrusions? A Grammar-Constrained, Calibrated Evaluation on UNSW-NB15

Authors: Mohammad Abdul Rehman, Syed Imad Ali Shah, Abbas Anwar, Noor Islam

Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) can reason over natural-language inputs, but their role in intrusion detection without fine-tuning remains uncertain. This study evaluates a prompt-only approach on UNSW-NB15 by converting each network flow to a compact textual record and augmenting it with lightweight, domain-inspired boolean flags (asymmetry, burst rate, TTL irregularities, timer anomalies, rare serv… ▽ More Large Language Models (LLMs) can reason over natural-language inputs, but their role in intrusion detection without fine-tuning remains uncertain. This study evaluates a prompt-only approach on UNSW-NB15 by converting each network flow to a compact textual record and augmenting it with lightweight, domain-inspired boolean flags (asymmetry, burst rate, TTL irregularities, timer anomalies, rare service/state, short bursts). To reduce output drift and support measurement, the model is constrained to produce structured, grammar-valid responses, and a single decision threshold is calibrated on a small development split. We compare zero-shot, instruction-guided, and few-shot prompting to strong tabular and neural baselines under identical splits, reporting accuracy, precision, recall, F1, and macro scores. Empirically, unguided prompting is unreliable, while instructions plus flags substantially improve detection quality; adding calibrated scoring further stabilizes results. On a balanced subset of two hundred flows, a 7B instruction-tuned model with flags reaches macro-F1 near 0.78; a lighter 3B model with few-shot cues and calibration attains F1 near 0.68 on one thousand examples. As the evaluation set grows to two thousand flows, decision quality decreases, revealing sensitivity to coverage and prompting. Tabular baselines remain more stable and faster, yet the prompt-only pipeline requires no gradient training, produces readable artifacts, and adapts easily through instructions and flags. Contributions include a flow-to-text protocol with interpretable cues, a calibration method for thresholding, a systematic baseline comparison, and a reproducibility bundle with prompts, grammar, metrics, and figures. △ Less

Submitted 26 October, 2025; v1 submitted 17 October, 2025; originally announced October 2025.

Hypergraph Contrastive Sensor Fusion for Multimodal Fault Diagnosis in Induction Motors

Authors: Usman Ali, Ali Zia, Waqas Ali, Umer Ramzan, Abdul Rehman, Muhammad Tayyab Chaudhry, Wei Xiang

Abstract: Reliable induction motor (IM) fault diagnosis is vital for industrial safety and operational continuity, mitigating costly unplanned downtime. Conventional approaches often struggle to capture complex multimodal signal relationships, are constrained to unimodal data or single fault types, and exhibit performance degradation under noisy or cross-domain conditions. This paper proposes the Multimodal… ▽ More Reliable induction motor (IM) fault diagnosis is vital for industrial safety and operational continuity, mitigating costly unplanned downtime. Conventional approaches often struggle to capture complex multimodal signal relationships, are constrained to unimodal data or single fault types, and exhibit performance degradation under noisy or cross-domain conditions. This paper proposes the Multimodal Hypergraph Contrastive Attention Network (MM-HCAN), a unified framework for robust fault diagnosis. To the best of our knowledge, MM-HCAN is the first to integrate contrastive learning within a hypergraph topology specifically designed for multimodal sensor fusion, enabling the joint modelling of intra- and inter-modal dependencies and enhancing generalisation beyond Euclidean embedding spaces. The model facilitates simultaneous diagnosis of bearing, stator, and rotor faults, addressing the engineering need for consolidated di- agnostic capabilities. Evaluated on three real-world benchmarks, MM-HCAN achieves up to 99.82% accuracy with strong cross-domain generalisation and resilience to noise, demonstrating its suitability for real-world deployment. An ablation study validates the contribution of each component. MM-HCAN provides a scalable and robust solution for comprehensive multi-fault diagnosis, supporting predictive maintenance and extended asset longevity in industrial environments. △ Less

Submitted 17 October, 2025; originally announced October 2025.

Comments: Submitted to IEEE Sensors Journal

Leveraging Wireless Sensor Networks for Real-Time Monitoring and Control of Industrial Environments

Authors: Muhammad Junaid Asif, Abdul Rehman, Asim Mehmood, Muhammad Hamza, Rana Fayyaz Ahmad, Shazia Saqib

Abstract: This research proposes an extensive technique for monitoring and controlling the industrial parameters using Internet of Things (IoT) technology based on wireless communication. We proposed a system based on NRF transceivers to establish a strong Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), enabling transfer of real-time data from multiple sensors to a central setup that is driven by ARDUINO microcontrollers. D… ▽ More This research proposes an extensive technique for monitoring and controlling the industrial parameters using Internet of Things (IoT) technology based on wireless communication. We proposed a system based on NRF transceivers to establish a strong Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), enabling transfer of real-time data from multiple sensors to a central setup that is driven by ARDUINO microcontrollers. Different key parameters, crucial for industrial setup such as temperature, humidity, soil moisture and fire detection, are monitored and displayed on an LCD screen, enabling factory administration to oversee the industrial operations remotely over the internet. Our proposed system bypasses the need for physical presence for monitoring by addressing the shortcomings of conventional wired communication systems. Other than monitoring, there is an additional feature to remotely control these parameters by controlling the speed of DC motors through online commands. Given the rising incidence of industrial fires over the worldwide between 2020 and 2024 due to an array of hazards, this system with dual functionality boosts the overall operational efficiency and safety. This overall integration of IoT and Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) reduces the potential risks linked with physical monitoring, providing rapid responses in emergency scenarios, including the activation of firefighting equipment. The results show that innovations in wireless communication perform an integral part in industrial process automation and safety, paving the way to more intelligent and responsive operating environments. Overall, this study highlights the potential for change of IoT-enabled systems to revolutionize monitoring and control in a variety of industrial applications, resulting in increased productivity and safety. △ Less

Submitted 8 April, 2026; v1 submitted 26 September, 2025; originally announced October 2025.

BFA: Real-time Multilingual Text-to-speech Forced Alignment

Authors: Abdul Rehman, Jingyao Cai, Jian-Jun Zhang, Xiaosong Yang

Abstract: We present Bournemouth Forced Aligner (BFA), a system that combines a Contextless Universal Phoneme Encoder (CUPE) with a connectionist temporal classification (CTC)based decoder. BFA introduces explicit modelling of inter-phoneme gaps and silences and hierarchical decoding strategies, enabling fine-grained boundary prediction. Evaluations on TIMIT and Buckeye corpora show that BFA achieves compet… ▽ More We present Bournemouth Forced Aligner (BFA), a system that combines a Contextless Universal Phoneme Encoder (CUPE) with a connectionist temporal classification (CTC)based decoder. BFA introduces explicit modelling of inter-phoneme gaps and silences and hierarchical decoding strategies, enabling fine-grained boundary prediction. Evaluations on TIMIT and Buckeye corpora show that BFA achieves competitive recall relative to Montreal Forced Aligner at relaxed tolerance levels, while predicting both onset and offset boundaries for richer temporal structure. BFA processes speech up to 240x faster than MFA, enabling faster than real-time alignment. This combination of speed and silence-aware alignment opens opportunities for interactive speech applications previously constrained by slow aligners. △ Less

Submitted 27 September, 2025; originally announced September 2025.

Comments: Under review

Punching Above Precision: Small Quantized Model Distillation with Learnable Regularizer

Authors: Abdur Rehman, S M A Sharif, Md Abdur Rahaman, Mohamed Jismy Aashik Rasool, Seongwan Kim, Jaeho Lee

Abstract: Quantization-aware training (QAT) combined with knowledge distillation (KD) is a promising strategy for compressing Artificial Intelligence (AI) models for deployment on resource-constrained hardware. However, existing QAT-KD methods often struggle to balance task-specific (TS) and distillation losses due to heterogeneous gradient magnitudes, especially under low-bit quantization. We propose Game… ▽ More Quantization-aware training (QAT) combined with knowledge distillation (KD) is a promising strategy for compressing Artificial Intelligence (AI) models for deployment on resource-constrained hardware. However, existing QAT-KD methods often struggle to balance task-specific (TS) and distillation losses due to heterogeneous gradient magnitudes, especially under low-bit quantization. We propose Game of Regularizer (GoR), a novel learnable regularization method that adaptively balances TS and KD objectives using only two trainable parameters for dynamic loss weighting. GoR reduces conflict between supervision signals, improves convergence, and boosts the performance of small quantized models (SQMs). Experiments on image classification, object detection (OD), and large language model (LLM) compression show that GoR consistently outperforms state-of-the-art QAT-KD methods. On low-power edge devices, it delivers faster inference while maintaining full-precision accuracy. We also introduce QAT-EKD-GoR, an ensemble distillation framework that uses multiple heterogeneous teacher models. Under optimal conditions, the proposed EKD-GoR can outperform full-precision models, providing a robust solution for real-world deployment. △ Less

Submitted 25 September, 2025; originally announced September 2025.

Degradation-Aware All-in-One Image Restoration via Latent Prior Encoding

Authors: S M A Sharif, Abdur Rehman, Fayaz Ali Dharejo, Radu Timofte, Rizwan Ali Naqvi

Abstract: Real-world images often suffer from spatially diverse degradations such as haze, rain, snow, and low-light, significantly impacting visual quality and downstream vision tasks. Existing all-in-one restoration (AIR) approaches either depend on external text prompts or embed hand-crafted architectural priors (e.g., frequency heuristics); both impose discrete, brittle assumptions that weaken generaliz… ▽ More Real-world images often suffer from spatially diverse degradations such as haze, rain, snow, and low-light, significantly impacting visual quality and downstream vision tasks. Existing all-in-one restoration (AIR) approaches either depend on external text prompts or embed hand-crafted architectural priors (e.g., frequency heuristics); both impose discrete, brittle assumptions that weaken generalization to unseen or mixed degradations. To address this limitation, we propose to reframe AIR as learned latent prior inference, where degradation-aware representations are automatically inferred from the input without explicit task cues. Based on latent priors, we formulate AIR as a structured reasoning paradigm: (1) which features to route (adaptive feature selection), (2) where to restore (spatial localization), and (3) what to restore (degradation semantics). We design a lightweight decoding module that efficiently leverages these latent encoded cues for spatially-adaptive restoration. Extensive experiments across six common degradation tasks, five compound settings, and previously unseen degradations demonstrate that our method outperforms state-of-the-art (SOTA) approaches, achieving an average PSNR improvement of 1.68 dB while being three times more efficient. △ Less

Submitted 26 December, 2025; v1 submitted 22 September, 2025; originally announced September 2025.

Personalized Inhibition Training with Eye-Tracking: Enhancing Student Learning and Teacher Assessment in Educational Games

Authors: Abdul Rehman, Ilona Heldal, Diana Stilwell, Paula Costa Ferreira, Jerry Chun-Wei Lin

Abstract: Eye tracking (ET) can help to understand visual attention and cognitive processes in interactive environments. This study presents a comprehensive eye-tracking analysis framework of the Inhibitory Control Game, named the ReStroop game, which is an educational intervention aimed at improving inhibitory control skills in children through a recycling-themed sorting task, for educational assessment th… ▽ More Eye tracking (ET) can help to understand visual attention and cognitive processes in interactive environments. This study presents a comprehensive eye-tracking analysis framework of the Inhibitory Control Game, named the ReStroop game, which is an educational intervention aimed at improving inhibitory control skills in children through a recycling-themed sorting task, for educational assessment that processes raw gaze data through unified algorithms for fixation detection, performance evaluation, and personalized intervention planning. The system employs dual-threshold eye movement detection (I-VT and advanced clustering), comprehensive Area of Interest (AOI) analysis, and evidence-based risk assessment to transform gaze patterns into actionable educational insights. We evaluated this framework across three difficulty levels and revealed critical attention deficits, including low task relevance, elevated attention scatter, and compromised processing efficiency. The multi-dimensional risk assessment identified high to moderate risk levels, triggering personalized interventions including focus training, attention regulation support, and environmental modifications. The system successfully distinguishes between adaptive learning and cognitive overload, providing early warning indicators for educational intervention. Results demonstrate the system's effectiveness in objective attention assessment, early risk identification, and the generation of evidence-based recommendations for students, teachers, and specialists, supporting data-driven educational decision-making and personalized learning approaches. △ Less

Submitted 10 September, 2025; originally announced September 2025.

An Adaptive Scoring Framework for Attention Assessment in NDD Children via Serious Games

Authors: Abdul Rehman, Ilona Heldal, Cristina Costescu, Carmen David, Jerry Chun-Wei Lin

Abstract: This paper introduces an innovative adaptive scoring framework for children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDD) that is attributed to the integration of multiple metrics, such as spatial attention patterns, temporal engagement, and game performance data, to create a comprehensive assessment of learning that goes beyond traditional game scoring. The framework employs a progressive difficulty ad… ▽ More This paper introduces an innovative adaptive scoring framework for children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDD) that is attributed to the integration of multiple metrics, such as spatial attention patterns, temporal engagement, and game performance data, to create a comprehensive assessment of learning that goes beyond traditional game scoring. The framework employs a progressive difficulty adaptation method, which focuses on specific stimuli for each level and adjusts weights dynamically to accommodate increasing cognitive load and learning complexity. Additionally, it includes capabilities for temporal analysis, such as detecting engagement periods, providing rewards for sustained attention, and implementing an adaptive multiplier framework based on performance levels. To avoid over-rewarding high performers while maximizing improvement potential for students who are struggling, the designed framework features an adaptive temporal impact framework that adjusts performance scales accordingly. We also established a multi-metric validation framework using Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Pearson correlation, and Spearman correlation, along with defined quality thresholds for assessing deployment readiness in educational settings. This research bridges the gap between technical eye-tracking metrics and educational insights by explicitly mapping attention patterns to learning behaviors, enabling actionable pedagogical interventions. △ Less

Submitted 10 September, 2025; originally announced September 2025.

Privacy Preservation and Identity Tracing Prevention in AI-Driven Eye Tracking for Interactive Learning Environments

Authors: Abdul Rehman, Are Dæhlen, Ilona Heldal, Jerry Chun-wei Lin

Abstract: Eye-tracking technology can aid in understanding neurodevelopmental disorders and tracing a person's identity. However, this technology poses a significant risk to privacy, as it captures sensitive information about individuals and increases the likelihood that data can be traced back to them. This paper proposes a human-centered framework designed to prevent identity backtracking while preserving… ▽ More Eye-tracking technology can aid in understanding neurodevelopmental disorders and tracing a person's identity. However, this technology poses a significant risk to privacy, as it captures sensitive information about individuals and increases the likelihood that data can be traced back to them. This paper proposes a human-centered framework designed to prevent identity backtracking while preserving the pedagogical benefits of AI-powered eye tracking in interactive learning environments. We explore how real-time data anonymization, ethical design principles, and regulatory compliance (such as GDPR) can be integrated to build trust and transparency. We first demonstrate the potential for backtracking student IDs and diagnoses in various scenarios using serious game-based eye-tracking data. We then provide a two-stage privacy-preserving framework that prevents participants from being tracked while still enabling diagnostic classification. The first phase covers four scenarios: I) Predicting disorder diagnoses based on different game levels. II) Predicting student IDs based on different game levels. III) Predicting student IDs based on randomized data. IV) Utilizing K-Means for out-of-sample data. In the second phase, we present a two-stage framework that preserves privacy. We also employ Federated Learning (FL) across multiple clients, incorporating a secure identity management system with dummy IDs and administrator-only access controls. In the first phase, the proposed framework achieved 99.3% accuracy for scenario 1, 63% accuracy for scenario 2, and 99.7% accuracy for scenario 3, successfully identifying and assigning a new student ID in scenario 4. In phase 2, we effectively prevented backtracking and established a secure identity management system with dummy IDs and administrator-only access controls, achieving an overall accuracy of 99.40%. △ Less

Submitted 4 September, 2025; originally announced September 2025.

Spatiotemporal EEG-Based Emotion Recognition Using SAM Ratings from Serious Games with Hybrid Deep Learning

Authors: Abdul Rehman, Ilona Heldal, Jerry Chun-Wei Lin

Abstract: Recent advancements in EEG-based emotion recognition have shown promising outcomes using both deep learning and classical machine learning approaches; however, most existing studies focus narrowly on binary valence prediction or subject-specific classification, which limits generalizability and deployment in real-world affective computing systems. To address this gap, this paper presents a unified… ▽ More Recent advancements in EEG-based emotion recognition have shown promising outcomes using both deep learning and classical machine learning approaches; however, most existing studies focus narrowly on binary valence prediction or subject-specific classification, which limits generalizability and deployment in real-world affective computing systems. To address this gap, this paper presents a unified, multigranularity EEG emotion classification framework built on the GAMEEMO dataset, which consists of 14-channel EEG recordings and continuous self-reported emotion ratings (boring, horrible, calm, and funny) from 28 subjects across four emotion-inducing gameplay scenarios. Our pipeline employs a structured preprocessing strategy that comprises temporal window segmentation, hybrid statistical and frequency-domain feature extraction, and z-score normalization to convert raw EEG signals into robust, discriminative input vectors. Emotion labels are derived and encoded across three complementary axes: (i) binary valence classification based on the averaged polarity of positive and negative emotion ratings, and (ii) Multi-class emotion classification, where the presence of the most affective state is predicted. (iii) Fine-grained multi-label representation via binning each emotion into 10 ordinal classes. We evaluate a broad spectrum of models, including Random Forest, XGBoost, and SVM, alongside deep neural architectures such as LSTM, LSTM-GRU, and CNN-LSTM. Among these, the LSTM-GRU model consistently outperforms the others, achieving an F1-score of 0.932 in the binary valence task and 94.5% and 90.6% in both multi-class and Multi-Label emotion classification. △ Less

Submitted 28 August, 2025; originally announced August 2025.

VisiTrail: A Cognitive Visualization Tool for Time-Series Analysis of Eye Tracking Data from Attention Game

Authors: Abdul Rehman, Ilona Heldal, Jerry Chun-Wei Lin

Abstract: Eye Tracking (ET) can help to understand visual attention and cognitive processes in interactive environments. In attention tasks, distinguishing between relevant target objects and distractors is crucial for effective performance, yet the underlying gaze patterns that drive successful task completion remain incompletely understood. Traditional gaze analyses lack comprehensive insights into the te… ▽ More Eye Tracking (ET) can help to understand visual attention and cognitive processes in interactive environments. In attention tasks, distinguishing between relevant target objects and distractors is crucial for effective performance, yet the underlying gaze patterns that drive successful task completion remain incompletely understood. Traditional gaze analyses lack comprehensive insights into the temporal dynamics of attention allocation and the relationship between gaze behavior and task performance. When applied to complex visual search scenarios, current gaze analysis methods face several limitations, including the isolation of measurements, visual stability, search efficiency, and the decision-making processes involved in these scenarios. This paper proposes an analysis tool that considers time series for eye tracking data from task performance and also gaze measures (fixations, saccades and smooth pursuit); temporal pattern analysis that reveals how attention evolves throughout task performance; object-click sequence tracking that directly links visual attention to user actions; and performance metrics that quantify both accuracy and efficiency. This tool provides comprehensive visualization techniques that make complex patterns of stimuli and gaze connections interpretable. △ Less

Submitted 28 August, 2025; originally announced August 2025.

CUPE: Contextless Universal Phoneme Encoder for Language-Agnostic Speech Processing

Authors: Abdul Rehman, Jian-Jun Zhang, Xiaosong Yang

Abstract: Universal phoneme recognition typically requires analyzing long speech segments and language-specific patterns. Many speech processing tasks require pure phoneme representations free from contextual influence, which motivated our development of CUPE - a lightweight model that captures key phoneme features in just 120 milliseconds, about one phoneme's length. CUPE processes short, fixed-width windo… ▽ More Universal phoneme recognition typically requires analyzing long speech segments and language-specific patterns. Many speech processing tasks require pure phoneme representations free from contextual influence, which motivated our development of CUPE - a lightweight model that captures key phoneme features in just 120 milliseconds, about one phoneme's length. CUPE processes short, fixed-width windows independently and, despite fewer parameters than current approaches, achieves competitive cross-lingual performance by learning fundamental acoustic patterns common to all languages. Our extensive evaluation through supervised and self-supervised training on diverse languages, including zero-shot tests on the UCLA Phonetic Corpus, demonstrates strong cross-lingual generalization and reveals that effective universal speech processing is possible through modeling basic acoustic patterns within phoneme-length windows. △ Less

Submitted 21 August, 2025; originally announced August 2025.

Comments: Accepted in: 8th International Conference on Natural Language and Speech Processing (ICNLSP 2025)

ACM Class: I.2.7

Explainable AI for Curie Temperature Prediction in Magnetic Materials

Authors: M. Adeel Ajaib, Fariha Nasir, Abdul Rehman

Abstract: We explore machine learning techniques for predicting Curie temperatures of magnetic materials using the NEMAD database. By augmenting the dataset with composition-based and domain-aware descriptors, we evaluate the performance of several machine learning models. We find that the Extra Trees Regressor delivers the best performance reaching an R^2 score of up to 0.85 $\pm$ 0.01 (cross-validated) fo… ▽ More We explore machine learning techniques for predicting Curie temperatures of magnetic materials using the NEMAD database. By augmenting the dataset with composition-based and domain-aware descriptors, we evaluate the performance of several machine learning models. We find that the Extra Trees Regressor delivers the best performance reaching an R^2 score of up to 0.85 $\pm$ 0.01 (cross-validated) for a balanced dataset. We employ the k-means clustering algorithm to gain insights into the performance of chemically distinct material groups. Furthermore, we perform the SHAP analysis to identify key physicochemical drivers of Curie behavior, such as average atomic number and magnetic moment. By employing explainable AI techniques, this analysis offers insights into the model's predictive behavior, thereby advancing scientific interpretability. △ Less

Submitted 18 November, 2025; v1 submitted 9 August, 2025; originally announced August 2025.

Comments: 7 pages, 6 figures, minor corrections

Advances in LLMs with Focus on Reasoning, Adaptability, Efficiency and Ethics

Authors: Asifullah Khan, Muhammad Zaeem Khan, Aleesha Zainab, Saleha Jamshed, Sadia Ahmad, Kaynat Khatib, Faria Bibi, Abdul Rehman

Abstract: This survey paper outlines the key developments in the field of Large Language Models (LLMs), including enhancements to their reasoning skills, adaptability to various tasks, increased computational efficiency, and the ability to make ethical decisions. The techniques that have been most effective in bridging the gap between human and machine communications include the Chain-of-Thought prompting,… ▽ More This survey paper outlines the key developments in the field of Large Language Models (LLMs), including enhancements to their reasoning skills, adaptability to various tasks, increased computational efficiency, and the ability to make ethical decisions. The techniques that have been most effective in bridging the gap between human and machine communications include the Chain-of-Thought prompting, Instruction Tuning, and Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback. The improvements in multimodal learning and few-shot or zero-shot techniques have further empowered LLMs to handle complex jobs with minor input. A significant focus is placed on efficiency, detailing scaling strategies, optimization techniques, and the influential Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture, which strategically routes inputs to specialized subnetworks to boost predictive accuracy, while optimizing resource allocation. This survey also offers a broader perspective on recent advancements in LLMs, going beyond isolated aspects such as model architecture or ethical concerns. Additionally, it explores the role of LLMs in Agentic AI and their use as Autonomous Decision-Making Systems, and categorizes emerging methods that enhance LLM reasoning, efficiency, and ethical alignment. The survey also identifies underexplored areas such as interpretability, cross-modal integration, and sustainability. While significant advancements have been made in LLMs, challenges such as high computational costs, biases, and ethical risks remain. Overcoming these requires a focus on bias mitigation, transparent decision-making, and explicit ethical guidelines. Future research will generally focus on enhancing the model's ability to handle multiple inputs, thereby making it more intelligent, safe, and reliable. △ Less

Submitted 11 February, 2026; v1 submitted 14 June, 2025; originally announced June 2025.

Enhanced Urdu Intent Detection with Large Language Models and Prototype-Informed Predictive Pipelines

Authors: Faiza Hassan, Summra Saleem, Kashif Javed, Muhammad Nabeel Asim, Abdur Rehman, Andreas Dengel

Abstract: Multifarious intent detection predictors are developed for different languages, including English, Chinese and French, however, the field remains underdeveloped for Urdu, the 10th most spoken language. In the realm of well-known languages, intent detection predictors utilize the strategy of few-shot learning and prediction of unseen classes based on the model training on seen classes. However, Urd… ▽ More Multifarious intent detection predictors are developed for different languages, including English, Chinese and French, however, the field remains underdeveloped for Urdu, the 10th most spoken language. In the realm of well-known languages, intent detection predictors utilize the strategy of few-shot learning and prediction of unseen classes based on the model training on seen classes. However, Urdu language lacks few-shot strategy based intent detection predictors and traditional predictors are focused on prediction of the same classes which models have seen in the train set. To empower Urdu language specific intent detection, this introduces a unique contrastive learning approach that leverages unlabeled Urdu data to re-train pre-trained language models. This re-training empowers LLMs representation learning for the downstream intent detection task. Finally, it reaps the combined potential of pre-trained LLMs and the prototype-informed attention mechanism to create a comprehensive end-to-end LLMPIA intent detection pipeline. Under the paradigm of proposed predictive pipeline, it explores the potential of 6 distinct language models and 13 distinct similarity computation methods. The proposed framework is evaluated on 2 public benchmark datasets, namely ATIS encompassing 5836 samples and Web Queries having 8519 samples. Across ATIS dataset under 4-way 1 shot and 4-way 5 shot experimental settings LLMPIA achieved 83.28% and 98.25% F1-Score and on Web Queries dataset produced 76.23% and 84.42% F1-Score, respectively. In an additional case study on the Web Queries dataset under same classes train and test set settings, LLMPIA outperformed state-of-the-art predictor by 53.55% F1-Score. △ Less

Submitted 8 May, 2025; originally announced May 2025.

Comments: 42 pages, 10 figures(including 6 graphs)

The Tenth NTIRE 2025 Image Denoising Challenge Report

Authors: Lei Sun, Hang Guo, Bin Ren, Luc Van Gool, Radu Timofte, Yawei Li, Xiangyu Kong, Hyunhee Park, Xiaoxuan Yu, Suejin Han, Hakjae Jeon, Jia Li, Hyung-Ju Chun, Donghun Ryou, Inju Ha, Bohyung Han, Jingyu Ma, Zhijuan Huang, Huiyuan Fu, Hongyuan Yu, Boqi Zhang, Jiawei Shi, Heng Zhang, Huadong Ma, Deepak Kumar Tyagi , et al. (69 additional authors not shown)

Abstract: This paper presents an overview of the NTIRE 2025 Image Denoising Challenge (σ = 50), highlighting the proposed methodologies and corresponding results. The primary objective is to develop a network architecture capable of achieving high-quality denoising performance, quantitatively evaluated using PSNR, without constraints on computational complexity or model size. The task assumes independent ad… ▽ More This paper presents an overview of the NTIRE 2025 Image Denoising Challenge (σ = 50), highlighting the proposed methodologies and corresponding results. The primary objective is to develop a network architecture capable of achieving high-quality denoising performance, quantitatively evaluated using PSNR, without constraints on computational complexity or model size. The task assumes independent additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) with a fixed noise level of 50. A total of 290 participants registered for the challenge, with 20 teams successfully submitting valid results, providing insights into the current state-of-the-art in image denoising. △ Less

Submitted 16 April, 2025; originally announced April 2025.

FSSUAVL: A Discriminative Framework using Vision Models for Federated Self-Supervised Audio and Image Understanding

Authors: Yasar Abbas Ur Rehman, Kin Wai Lau, Yuyang Xie, Ma Lan, JiaJun Shen

Abstract: Recent studies have demonstrated that vision models can effectively learn multimodal audio-image representations when paired. However, the challenge of enabling deep models to learn representations from unpaired modalities remains unresolved. This issue is especially pertinent in scenarios like Federated Learning (FL), where data is often decentralized, heterogeneous, and lacks a reliable guarante… ▽ More Recent studies have demonstrated that vision models can effectively learn multimodal audio-image representations when paired. However, the challenge of enabling deep models to learn representations from unpaired modalities remains unresolved. This issue is especially pertinent in scenarios like Federated Learning (FL), where data is often decentralized, heterogeneous, and lacks a reliable guarantee of paired data. Previous attempts tackled this issue through the use of auxiliary pretrained encoders or generative models on local clients, which invariably raise computational cost with increasing number modalities. Unlike these approaches, in this paper, we aim to address the task of unpaired audio and image recognition using \texttt{FSSUAVL}, a single deep model pretrained in FL with self-supervised contrastive learning (SSL). Instead of aligning the audio and image modalities, \texttt{FSSUAVL} jointly discriminates them by projecting them into a common embedding space using contrastive SSL. This extends the utility of \texttt{FSSUAVL} to paired and unpaired audio and image recognition tasks. Our experiments with CNN and ViT demonstrate that \texttt{FSSUAVL} significantly improves performance across various image- and audio-based downstream tasks compared to using separate deep models for each modality. Additionally, \texttt{FSSUAVL}'s capacity to learn multimodal feature representations allows for integrating auxiliary information, if available, to enhance recognition accuracy. △ Less

Submitted 13 April, 2025; originally announced April 2025.

Comments: 8 pages

Leveraging Sparse Annotations for Leukemia Diagnosis on the Large Leukemia Dataset

Authors: Abdul Rehman, Talha Meraj, Aiman Mahmood Minhas, Ayisha Imran, Mohsen Ali, Waqas Sultani, Mubarak Shah

Abstract: Leukemia is the 10th most frequently diagnosed cancer and one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Realistic analysis of leukemia requires white blood cell (WBC) localization, classification, and morphological assessment. Despite deep learning advances in medical imaging, leukemia analysis lacks a large, diverse multi-task dataset, while existing small datasets lack domain div… ▽ More Leukemia is the 10th most frequently diagnosed cancer and one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Realistic analysis of leukemia requires white blood cell (WBC) localization, classification, and morphological assessment. Despite deep learning advances in medical imaging, leukemia analysis lacks a large, diverse multi-task dataset, while existing small datasets lack domain diversity, limiting real-world applicability. To overcome dataset challenges, we present a large-scale WBC dataset named Large Leukemia Dataset (LLD) and novel methods for detecting WBC with their attributes. Our contribution here is threefold. First, we present a large-scale Leukemia dataset collected through Peripheral Blood Films (PBF) from 48 patients, through multiple microscopes, multi-cameras, and multi-magnification. To enhance diagnosis explainability and medical expert acceptance, each leukemia cell is annotated at 100x with 7 morphological attributes, ranging from Cell Size to Nuclear Shape. Secondly, we propose a multi-task model that not only detects WBCs but also predicts their attributes, providing an interpretable and clinically meaningful solution. Third, we propose a method for WBC detection with attribute analysis using sparse annotations. This approach reduces the annotation burden on hematologists, requiring them to mark only a small area within the field of view. Our method enables the model to leverage the entire field of view rather than just the annotated regions, enhancing learning efficiency and diagnostic accuracy. From diagnosis explainability to overcoming domain-shift challenges, the presented datasets can be used for many challenging aspects of microscopic image analysis. The datasets, code, and demo are available at: https://im.itu.edu.pk/sparse-leukemiaattri/ △ Less

Submitted 8 August, 2025; v1 submitted 3 April, 2025; originally announced April 2025.

Comments: Accepted for Publication in Medical Image Analysis Journal

Illuminating Darkness: Learning to Enhance Low-light Images In-the-Wild

Authors: S M A Sharif, Abdur Rehman, Zain Ul Abidin, Fayaz Ali Dharejo, Radu Timofte, Rizwan Ali Naqvi

Abstract: Single-shot low-light image enhancement (SLLIE) remains challenging due to the limited availability of diverse, real-world paired datasets. To bridge this gap, we introduce the Low-Light Smartphone Dataset (LSD), a large-scale, high-resolution (4K+) dataset collected in the wild across a wide range of challenging lighting conditions (0.1 to 200 lux). LSD contains 6,425 precisely aligned low and no… ▽ More Single-shot low-light image enhancement (SLLIE) remains challenging due to the limited availability of diverse, real-world paired datasets. To bridge this gap, we introduce the Low-Light Smartphone Dataset (LSD), a large-scale, high-resolution (4K+) dataset collected in the wild across a wide range of challenging lighting conditions (0.1 to 200 lux). LSD contains 6,425 precisely aligned low and normal-light image pairs, selected from over 8,000 dynamic indoor and outdoor scenes through multi-frame acquisition and expert evaluation. To evaluate generalization and aesthetic quality, we collect 2,117 unpaired low-light images from previously unseen devices. To fully exploit LSD, we propose TFFormer, a hybrid model that encodes luminance and chrominance (LC) separately to reduce color-structure entanglement. We further propose a cross-attention-driven joint decoder for context-aware fusion of LC representations, along with LC refinement and LC-guided supervision to significantly enhance perceptual fidelity and structural consistency. TFFormer achieves state-of-the-art results on LSD (+2.45 dB PSNR) and substantially improves downstream vision tasks, such as low-light object detection (+6.80 mAP on ExDark). △ Less

Submitted 29 December, 2025; v1 submitted 10 March, 2025; originally announced March 2025.

Systematic Literature Review on Clinical Trial Eligibility Matching

Authors: Muhammad Talha Sharif, Abdul Rehman

Abstract: Clinical trial eligibility matching is a critical yet often labor-intensive and error-prone step in medical research, as it ensures that participants meet precise criteria for safe and reliable study outcomes. Recent advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) have shown promise in automating and improving this process by rapidly analyzing large volumes of unstructured clinical text and structur… ▽ More Clinical trial eligibility matching is a critical yet often labor-intensive and error-prone step in medical research, as it ensures that participants meet precise criteria for safe and reliable study outcomes. Recent advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) have shown promise in automating and improving this process by rapidly analyzing large volumes of unstructured clinical text and structured electronic health record (EHR) data. In this paper, we present a systematic overview of current NLP methodologies applied to clinical trial eligibility screening, focusing on data sources, annotation practices, machine learning approaches, and real-world implementation challenges. A comprehensive literature search (spanning Google Scholar, Mendeley, and PubMed from 2015 to 2024) yielded high-quality studies, each demonstrating the potential of techniques such as rule-based systems, named entity recognition, contextual embeddings, and ontology-based normalization to enhance patient matching accuracy. While results indicate substantial improvements in screening efficiency and precision, limitations persist regarding data completeness, annotation consistency, and model scalability across diverse clinical domains. The review highlights how explainable AI and standardized ontologies can bolster clinician trust and broaden adoption. Looking ahead, further research into advanced semantic and temporal representations, expanded data integration, and rigorous prospective evaluations is necessary to fully realize the transformative potential of NLP in clinical trial recruitment. △ Less

Submitted 2 March, 2025; originally announced March 2025.

OPAQUE: Obfuscating Phase in Quantum Circuit Compilation for Efficient IP Protection

Authors: Anees Rehman, Vincent Langford, Yuntao Liu

Abstract: Quantum compilers play a crucial role in quantum computing by converting these algorithmic quantum circuits into forms compatible with specific quantum computer hardware. However, untrusted quantum compilers present considerable risks, including the potential theft of quantum circuit intellectual property (IP) and compromise of the functionality (e.g. Trojan insertion). Quantum circuit obfuscation… ▽ More Quantum compilers play a crucial role in quantum computing by converting these algorithmic quantum circuits into forms compatible with specific quantum computer hardware. However, untrusted quantum compilers present considerable risks, including the potential theft of quantum circuit intellectual property (IP) and compromise of the functionality (e.g. Trojan insertion). Quantum circuit obfuscation techniques protect quantum IP by transforming a quantum circuit into a key-dependent version before compilation and restoring the compiled circuit's functionality with the correct key. This prevents the untrusted compiler from knowing the circuit's original functionality. Existing quantum circuit obfuscation techniques focus on inserting key qubits to control key gates. One added key gate can represent at most one Boolean key bit. In this paper, we propose OPAQUE, a phase-based quantum circuit obfuscation approach where we use the angle of rotation gates as the secret keys. The rotation angle is a continuous value, which makes it possible to represent multiple key bits. Moreover, phase gates are usually implemented as virtual gates in quantum hardware, diminishing their cost and impact on accuracy. △ Less

Submitted 23 February, 2025; originally announced February 2025.

Comments: To appear at ISQED '25

Robust blue-green urban flood risk management optimised with a genetic algorithm for multiple rainstorm return periods

Authors: Asid Ur Rehman, Vassilis Glenis, Elizabeth Lewis, Chris Kilsby, Claire Walsh

Abstract: Flood risk managers seek to optimise Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI) designs to maximise return on investment. Current systems often use optimisation algorithms and detailed flood models to maximise benefit-cost ratios for single rainstorm return periods. However, these schemes may lack robustness in mitigating flood risks across different storm magnitudes. For example, a BGI scheme optimised for… ▽ More Flood risk managers seek to optimise Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI) designs to maximise return on investment. Current systems often use optimisation algorithms and detailed flood models to maximise benefit-cost ratios for single rainstorm return periods. However, these schemes may lack robustness in mitigating flood risks across different storm magnitudes. For example, a BGI scheme optimised for a 100-year return period may differ from one optimised for a 10-year return period. This study introduces a novel methodology incorporating five return periods (T = 10, 20, 30, 50, and 100 years) into a multi-objective BGI optimisation framework. The framework combines a Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) with a fully distributed hydrodynamic model to optimise the spatial placement and combined size of BGI features. For the first time, direct damage cost (DDC) and expected annual damage (EAD), calculated for various building types, are used as risk objective functions, transforming a many-objective problem into a multi-objective one. Performance metrics such as Median Risk Difference (MedRD), Maximum Risk Difference (MaxRD), and Area Under Pareto Front (AUPF) reveal that a 100-year optimised BGI design performs poorly when evaluated for other return periods, particularly shorter ones. In contrast, a BGI design optimised using composite return periods enhances performance metrics across all return periods, with the greatest improvements observed in MedRD (22%) and AUPF (73%) for the 20-year return period, and MaxRD (23%) for the 50-year return period. Furthermore, climate uplift stress testing confirms the robustness of the proposed design to future rainfall extremes. This study advocates a paradigm shift in flood risk management, moving from single maximum to multiple rainstorm return period-based designs to enhance resilience and adaptability to future climate extremes. △ Less

Submitted 8 September, 2025; v1 submitted 13 February, 2025; originally announced February 2025.

Comments: Preprint published in Journal of Flood Risk Management on September 7, 2025

Journal ref: Journal of Flood Risk Management, Volume18, Issue3, September 2025, e70118

CardioLive: Empowering Video Streaming with Online Cardiac Monitoring

Authors: Sheng Lyu, Ruiming Huang, Sijie Ji, Yasar Abbas Ur Rehman, Lan Ma, Chenshu Wu

Abstract: Online Cardiac Monitoring (OCM) emerges as a compelling enhancement for the next-generation video streaming platforms. It enables various applications including remote health, online affective computing, and deepfake detection. Yet the physiological information encapsulated in the video streams has been long neglected. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of CardioLive, the firs… ▽ More Online Cardiac Monitoring (OCM) emerges as a compelling enhancement for the next-generation video streaming platforms. It enables various applications including remote health, online affective computing, and deepfake detection. Yet the physiological information encapsulated in the video streams has been long neglected. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of CardioLive, the first online cardiac monitoring system in video streaming platforms. We leverage the naturally co-existed video and audio streams and devise CardioNet, the first audio-visual network to learn the cardiac series. It incorporates multiple unique designs to extract temporal and spectral features, ensuring robust performance under realistic video streaming conditions. To enable the Service-On-Demand online cardiac monitoring, we implement CardioLive as a plug-and-play middleware service and develop systematic solutions to practical issues including changing FPS and unsynchronized streams. Extensive experiments have been done to demonstrate the effectiveness of our system. We achieve a Mean Square Error (MAE) of 1.79 BPM error, outperforming the video-only and audio-only solutions by 69.2% and 81.2%, respectively. Our CardioLive service achieves average throughputs of 115.97 and 98.16 FPS when implemented in Zoom and YouTube. We believe our work opens up new applications for video stream systems. We will release the code soon. △ Less

Submitted 10 December, 2025; v1 submitted 2 February, 2025; originally announced February 2025.

Comments: Preprint

Towards a Supporting Framework for Neuro-Developmental Disorder: Considering Artificial Intelligence, Serious Games and Eye Tracking

Authors: Abdul Rehman, Ilona Heldal, Diana Stilwell, Jerry Chun-Wei Lin

Abstract: This paper focuses on developing a framework for uncovering insights about NDD children's performance (e.g., raw gaze cluster analysis, duration analysis \& area of interest for sustained attention, stimuli expectancy, loss of focus/motivation, inhibitory control) and informing their teachers. The hypothesis behind this work is that self-adaptation of games can contribute to improving students' we… ▽ More This paper focuses on developing a framework for uncovering insights about NDD children's performance (e.g., raw gaze cluster analysis, duration analysis \& area of interest for sustained attention, stimuli expectancy, loss of focus/motivation, inhibitory control) and informing their teachers. The hypothesis behind this work is that self-adaptation of games can contribute to improving students' well-being and performance by suggesting personalized activities (e.g., highlighting stimuli to increase attention or choosing a difficulty level that matches students' abilities). The aim is to examine how AI can be used to help solve this problem. The results would not only contribute to a better understanding of the problems of NDD children and their teachers but also help psychologists to validate the results against their clinical knowledge, improve communication with patients and identify areas for further investigation, e.g., by explaining the decision made and preserving the children's private data in the learning process. △ Less

Submitted 1 February, 2025; originally announced February 2025.

Journal ref: 2024 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (BigData)

SSRepL-ADHD: Adaptive Complex Representation Learning Framework for ADHD Detection from Visual Attention Tasks

Authors: Abdul Rehman, Ilona Heldal, Jerry Chun-Wei Lin

Abstract: Self Supervised Representation Learning (SSRepL) can capture meaningful and robust representations of the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) data and have the potential to improve the model's performance on also downstream different types of Neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) detection. In this paper, a novel SSRepL and Transfer Learning (TL)-based framework that incorporates a Long Sh… ▽ More Self Supervised Representation Learning (SSRepL) can capture meaningful and robust representations of the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) data and have the potential to improve the model's performance on also downstream different types of Neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) detection. In this paper, a novel SSRepL and Transfer Learning (TL)-based framework that incorporates a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and a Gated Recurrent Units (GRU) model is proposed to detect children with potential symptoms of ADHD. This model uses Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals extracted during visual attention tasks to accurately detect ADHD by preprocessing EEG signal quality through normalization, filtering, and data balancing. For the experimental analysis, we use three different models: 1) SSRepL and TL-based LSTM-GRU model named as SSRepL-ADHD, which integrates LSTM and GRU layers to capture temporal dependencies in the data, 2) lightweight SSRepL-based DNN model (LSSRepL-DNN), and 3) Random Forest (RF). In the study, these models are thoroughly evaluated using well-known performance metrics (i.e., accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score). The results show that the proposed SSRepL-ADHD model achieves the maximum accuracy of 81.11% while admitting the difficulties associated with dataset imbalance and feature selection. △ Less

Submitted 1 February, 2025; originally announced February 2025.

Journal ref: 2024 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (BigData)