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Large Language Models for Scientific Idea Generation: A Creativity-Centered Survey
Authors:
Fatemeh Shahhosseini,
Arash Marioriyad,
Ali Momen,
Mahdieh Soleymani Baghshah,
Mohammad Hossein Rohban,
Shaghayegh Haghjooy Javanmard
Abstract:
Scientific idea generation lies at the heart of scientific discovery and has driven human progress-whether by solving unsolved problems or proposing novel hypotheses to explain unknown phenomena. Unlike standard scientific reasoning or general creative generation, idea generation in science is a multi-objective and open-ended task, where the novelty of a contribution is as essential as its empiric…
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Scientific idea generation lies at the heart of scientific discovery and has driven human progress-whether by solving unsolved problems or proposing novel hypotheses to explain unknown phenomena. Unlike standard scientific reasoning or general creative generation, idea generation in science is a multi-objective and open-ended task, where the novelty of a contribution is as essential as its empirical soundness. Large language models (LLMs) have recently emerged as promising generators of scientific ideas, capable of producing coherent and factual outputs with surprising intuition and acceptable reasoning, yet their creative capacity remains inconsistent and poorly understood. This survey provides a structured synthesis of methods for LLM-driven scientific ideation, examining how different approaches balance creativity with scientific soundness. We categorize existing methods into five complementary families: External knowledge augmentation, Prompt-based distributional steering, Inference-time scaling, Multi-agent collaboration, and Parameter-level adaptation. To interpret their contributions, we employ two complementary frameworks: Boden's taxonomy of Combinatorial, Exploratory and Transformational creativity to characterize the level of ideas each family expected to generate, and Rhodes' 4Ps framework-Person, Process, Press, and Product-to locate the aspect or source of creativity that each method emphasizes. By aligning methodological advances with creativity frameworks, this survey clarifies the state of the field and outlines key directions toward reliable, systematic, and transformative applications of LLMs in scientific discovery.
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Submitted 5 November, 2025;
originally announced November 2025.
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RGC: a radio AGN classifier based on deep learning. I. A semi-supervised model for the VLA images of bent radio AGNs
Authors:
M. S. Hossain,
M. S. H. Shahal,
A. Khan,
K. M. B. Asad,
P. Saikia,
F. Akter,
A. Ali,
M. A. Amin,
A. Momen,
M. Hasan,
A. K. M. M. Rahman
Abstract:
Wide-angle tail (WAT) and narrow-angle tail (NAT) radio active galactic nuclei (RAGNs) are key tracers of dense environments in galaxy groups and clusters, yet no machine-learning classifier of bent RAGNs has been trained using both unlabeled data and purely visually inspected labels. We release the RGC Python package, which includes two newly preprocessed labeled datasets of 639 WATs and NATs der…
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Wide-angle tail (WAT) and narrow-angle tail (NAT) radio active galactic nuclei (RAGNs) are key tracers of dense environments in galaxy groups and clusters, yet no machine-learning classifier of bent RAGNs has been trained using both unlabeled data and purely visually inspected labels. We release the RGC Python package, which includes two newly preprocessed labeled datasets of 639 WATs and NATs derived from a publicly available catalog of visually inspected sources, along with a semi-supervised RGC model that leverages 20,000 unlabeled RAGNs. The two labeled datasets in RGC were preprocessed using PyBDSF which retains spurious sources, and Photutils which removes them. The RGC model integrates the self-supervised framework BYOL (Bootstrap YOur Latent) with the supervised E2CNN (E2-equivariant Convolutional Neural Network) to form a semi-supervised binary classifier. The RGC model, when trained and evaluated on a dataset devoid of spurious sources, reaches peak performance, attaining an accuracy of 88.88% along with F1-scores of 0.90 for WATs and 0.85 for NATs. The model's attention patterns amid class imbalance suggest that this work can serve as a stepping stone toward developing physics-informed foundation models capable of identifying a broad range of AGN physical properties.
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Submitted 25 October, 2025;
originally announced October 2025.
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BD Open LULC Map: High-resolution land use land cover mapping & benchmarking for urban development in Dhaka, Bangladesh
Authors:
Mir Sazzat Hossain,
Ovi Paul,
Md Akil Raihan Iftee,
Rakibul Hasan Rajib,
Abu Bakar Siddik Nayem,
Anis Sarker,
Arshad Momen,
Md. Ashraful Amin,
Amin Ahsan Ali,
AKM Mahbubur Rahman
Abstract:
Land Use Land Cover (LULC) mapping using deep learning significantly enhances the reliability of LULC classification, aiding in understanding geography, socioeconomic conditions, poverty levels, and urban sprawl. However, the scarcity of annotated satellite data, especially in South/East Asian developing countries, poses a major challenge due to limited funding, diverse infrastructures, and dense…
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Land Use Land Cover (LULC) mapping using deep learning significantly enhances the reliability of LULC classification, aiding in understanding geography, socioeconomic conditions, poverty levels, and urban sprawl. However, the scarcity of annotated satellite data, especially in South/East Asian developing countries, poses a major challenge due to limited funding, diverse infrastructures, and dense populations. In this work, we introduce the BD Open LULC Map (BOLM), providing pixel-wise LULC annotations across eleven classes (e.g., Farmland, Water, Forest, Urban Structure, Rural Built-Up) for Dhaka metropolitan city and its surroundings using high-resolution Bing satellite imagery (2.22 m/pixel). BOLM spans 4,392 sq km (891 million pixels), with ground truth validated through a three-stage process involving GIS experts. We benchmark LULC segmentation using DeepLab V3+ across five major classes and compare performance on Bing and Sentinel-2A imagery. BOLM aims to support reliable deep models and domain adaptation tasks, addressing critical LULC dataset gaps in South/East Asia.
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Submitted 27 May, 2025;
originally announced May 2025.
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RGC-Bent: A Novel Dataset for Bent Radio Galaxy Classification
Authors:
Mir Sazzat Hossain,
Khan Muhammad Bin Asad,
Payaswini Saikia,
Adrita Khan,
Md Akil Raihan Iftee,
Rakibul Hasan Rajib,
Arshad Momen,
Md Ashraful Amin,
Amin Ahsan Ali,
AKM Mahbubur Rahman
Abstract:
We introduce a novel machine learning dataset tailored for the classification of bent radio active galactic nuclei (AGN) in astronomical observations. Bent radio AGN, distinguished by their curved jet structures, provide critical insights into galaxy cluster dynamics, interactions within the intracluster medium, and the broader physics of AGN. Despite their astrophysical significance, the classifi…
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We introduce a novel machine learning dataset tailored for the classification of bent radio active galactic nuclei (AGN) in astronomical observations. Bent radio AGN, distinguished by their curved jet structures, provide critical insights into galaxy cluster dynamics, interactions within the intracluster medium, and the broader physics of AGN. Despite their astrophysical significance, the classification of bent radio AGN remains a challenge due to the scarcity of specialized datasets and benchmarks. To address this, we present a dataset, derived from a well-recognized radio astronomy survey, that is designed to support the classification of NAT (Narrow-Angle Tail) and WAT (Wide-Angle Tail) categories, along with detailed data processing steps. We further evaluate the performance of state-of-the-art deep learning models on the dataset, including Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), and transformer-based architectures. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of advanced machine learning models in classifying bent radio AGN, with ConvNeXT achieving the highest F1-scores for both NAT and WAT sources. By sharing this dataset and benchmarks, we aim to facilitate the advancement of research in AGN classification, galaxy cluster environments and galaxy evolution.
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Submitted 25 May, 2025;
originally announced May 2025.
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Morphological Classification of Radio Galaxies using Semi-Supervised Group Equivariant CNNs
Authors:
Mir Sazzat Hossain,
Sugandha Roy,
K. M. B. Asad,
Arshad Momen,
Amin Ahsan Ali,
M Ashraful Amin,
A. K. M. Mahbubur Rahman
Abstract:
Out of the estimated few trillion galaxies, only around a million have been detected through radio frequencies, and only a tiny fraction, approximately a thousand, have been manually classified. We have addressed this disparity between labeled and unlabeled images of radio galaxies by employing a semi-supervised learning approach to classify them into the known Fanaroff-Riley Type I (FRI) and Type…
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Out of the estimated few trillion galaxies, only around a million have been detected through radio frequencies, and only a tiny fraction, approximately a thousand, have been manually classified. We have addressed this disparity between labeled and unlabeled images of radio galaxies by employing a semi-supervised learning approach to classify them into the known Fanaroff-Riley Type I (FRI) and Type II (FRII) categories. A Group Equivariant Convolutional Neural Network (G-CNN) was used as an encoder of the state-of-the-art self-supervised methods SimCLR (A Simple Framework for Contrastive Learning of Visual Representations) and BYOL (Bootstrap Your Own Latent). The G-CNN preserves the equivariance for the Euclidean Group E(2), enabling it to effectively learn the representation of globally oriented feature maps. After representation learning, we trained a fully-connected classifier and fine-tuned the trained encoder with labeled data. Our findings demonstrate that our semi-supervised approach outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods across several metrics, including cluster quality, convergence rate, accuracy, precision, recall, and the F1-score. Moreover, statistical significance testing via a t-test revealed that our method surpasses the performance of a fully supervised G-CNN. This study emphasizes the importance of semi-supervised learning in radio galaxy classification, where labeled data are still scarce, but the prospects for discovery are immense.
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Submitted 31 May, 2023;
originally announced June 2023.