Negative / Null Result Report
Shyla Davison, null null, null null et al. · 2022 · John Heinrichs Scholarly & Creative Activities Day
Over the past five years, there has been many improvements to the Sternberg Museum of Natural History that have resulted in a renovated fossil preparation lab and a new database for specimen data storage. To find ways to improve our…
View details →DOI: 10.58809/gqnc8856 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Aldar C-F. Chan · 2007 · arXiv
Any secured system can be modeled as a capability-based access control system in which each user is given a set of secret keys of the resources he is granted access to. In some large systems with resource-constrained devices, such as sensor networks and RFID systems, the design is sensitive to memory or key storage cost. With a goal to minimize the maximum users' key storage, key compression based on key linking, that is, deriving one key from another without compromising security, is studied. A lower bound on key storage needed for a general access structure with key derivation is derived. Th
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Calvin McCarter, Nicholas Dronen · 2022 · arXiv
Fast approximations to matrix multiplication have the potential to dramatically reduce the cost of neural network inference. Recent work on approximate matrix multiplication proposed to replace costly multiplications with table-lookups by fitting a fast hash function from training data. In this work, we propose improvements to this previous work, targeted to the deep learning inference setting, where one has access to both training data and fixed (already learned) model weight matrices. We further propose a fine-tuning procedure for accelerating entire neural networks while minimizing loss in
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
A. Rubbia, P. Sala · 2002 · arXiv
The possibility to improve the CERN to Gran Sasso neutrino beam performances for theta_{13} searches is investigated. We show that by an appropriate optimization of the target and focusing optics of the present CNGS design, we can increase the flux of low energy neutrinos by about a factor 5 compared to the current tau optimized focalisation. With the ICARUS 2.35 kton detector at LNGS and in case of negative result, this would allow to improve the limit to sin^22 theta_{13} by an order of magnitude better than the current limit of CHOOZ at Delta m^2 approximately 3 times 10^{-3} eV^2 within 5
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Chelsea Murray, James U. Allingham, Javier Antorán et al. · 2021 · arXiv
Farquhar et al. [2021] show that correcting for active learning bias with underparameterised models leads to improved downstream performance. For overparameterised models such as NNs, however, correction leads either to decreased or unchanged performance. They suggest that this is due to an "overfitting bias" which offsets the active learning bias. We show that depth uncertainty networks operate in a low overfitting regime, much like underparameterised models. They should therefore see an increase in performance with bias correction. Surprisingly, they do not. We propose that this negative res
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMathematics
Yemon Choi · 2015 · arXiv
We show that, given a compact Hausdorff space $Ω$, there is a compact group ${\mathbb G}$ and a homeomorphic embedding of $Ω$ into ${\mathbb G}$, such that the restriction map ${\rm A}({\mathbb G})\to C(Ω)$ is a complete quotient map of operator spaces. In particular, this shows that there exist compact groups which contain infinite cb-Helson subsets, answering a question raised in [Choi--Samei, Proc. AMS 2013; cf. http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.2953]. A negative result from the same paper is also improved.
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Anand Ganesh, Babhrubahan Bose, Anand Rajagopalan · 2025 · arXiv
We construct four Schauder bases for the space $C[0,1]$, one using ReLU functions, another using Softplus functions, and two more using sigmoidal versions of the ReLU and Softplus functions. This establishes the existence of a basis using these functions for the first time, and improves on the universal approximation property associated with them. We also show an $O(\frac{1}{n})$ approximation bound based on our ReLU basis, and a negative result on constructing multivariate functions using finite combinations of ReLU functions.
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Samuel R. Bowman, Jennimaria Palomaki, Livio Baldini Soares et al. · 2020 · arXiv
Natural language inference (NLI) data has proven useful in benchmarking and, especially, as pretraining data for tasks requiring language understanding. However, the crowdsourcing protocol that was used to collect this data has known issues and was not explicitly optimized for either of these purposes, so it is likely far from ideal. We propose four alternative protocols, each aimed at improving either the ease with which annotators can produce sound training examples or the quality and diversity of those examples. Using these alternatives and a fifth baseline protocol, we collect and compare
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Simon Kuang, Yuezhu Xu, S. Sivaranjani et al. · 2026 · arXiv
The global Lipschitz constant of a neural network is related to robustness and generalization, yet unlike in many classical models, it is not plainly legible from the parameters. This has motivated sophisticated verification algorithms, especially semidefinite programming (SDP) based on incremental quadratic constraints on the activation functions, to improve on the fast but often loose product of layerwise Lipschitz constants (the trivial bound). We ask why Lipschitz verification is a problem in the first place. Our answer is that the difficulty is structural: estimating a network's Lipschitz
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Samuel Jacob Chacko, James Hugglestone, Chashi Mahiul Islam et al. · 2026 · arXiv
Agent Skills, structured packages of procedural knowledge loaded into an LLM agent at inference time, are widely reported to improve task pass rates by an average of 16.2~percentage points across diverse domains. Yet the same benchmarks show wide variance, with 16 of 84 tasks suffering negative deltas when Skills are introduced. The community has not yet articulated a clean mechanism for \emph{when} Skills help and when they are merely redundant overhead. We re-analyze a recently published 180-run controlled study of an MCP-grounded autonomous Capture-the-Flag (CTF) agent under four documentat
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Lukas Balles, Cedric Archambeau, Giovanni Zappella · 2023 · arXiv
With increasing scale in model and dataset size, the training of deep neural networks becomes a massive computational burden. One approach to speed up the training process is Selective Backprop. For this approach, we perform a forward pass to obtain a loss value for each data point in a minibatch. The backward pass is then restricted to a subset of that minibatch, prioritizing high-loss examples. We build on this approach, but seek to improve the subset selection mechanism by choosing the (weighted) subset which best matches the mean gradient over the entire minibatch. We use the gradients w.r
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Kenichi Konishi · 2023 · arXiv
We comment on the so-called negative-result experiments (also known as null measurements, interaction-free measurements, and so on) in quantum mechanics (QM), in the light of the new general understanding of the quantum-measurement processes, proposed recently. All experiments of this kind (null-measurements) can be understood as improper measurements with an intentionally biased detector set up, which introduces exclusion or selection of certain events. The prediction on the state of a microscopic system under study based on a null measurement, is sometimes dramatically described as ``wave-fu
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessEconomics, Econometrics and Finance
Taylor Knipe, Josue Ortega · 2025 · arXiv
The celebrated Efficiency-Adjusted Deferred Acceptance mechanism (EADA) improves the efficiency of the DA algorithm via consented priority violations. Notwithstanding its many merits, we show that EADA can improve only two students when an alternative mechanism that Pareto-dominates DA could benefit all but one student. This shortfall in the number of students improved is not exclusive of EADA but extends to all setwise minimally unstable mechanisms, i.e. those that generate a set of blocking pairs that is never a strict superset of that of another mechanism. The incompatibility between number
Negative / Null Result Report
Erin Waggoner, null null, null null et al. · 2023 · John Heinrichs Scholarly & Creative Activities Day
Rapid Response Teams became a hospital standard in 2004 after a campaign by the Institute of Healthcare Improvement. The intention was to reduce hospital morbidity and mortality by bringing the resources to the bedside that match the…
View details →DOI: 10.58809/lahg2918 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Fabrizio Ottati, Giovanna Turvani, Marco Vacca et al. · 2023 · arXiv
The speed of modern digital systems is severely limited by memory latency (the ``Memory Wall'' problem). Data exchange between Logic and Memory is also responsible for a large part of the system energy consumption. Logic--In--Memory (LiM) represents an attractive solution to this problem. By performing part of the computations directly inside the memory the system speed can be improved while reducing its energy consumption. LiM solutions that offer the major boost in performance are based on the modification of the memory cell. However, what is the cost of such modifications? How do these impa
Failed Experiment ReportOpen accessEngineering
Ramin Babaee, Shahab Oveis Gharan, Martin Bouchard · 2025 · arXiv
We propose a novel digital-to-analog converter (DAC) weighting architecture that statistically minimizes the distortion caused by random timing mismatches among current sources. To decode the DAC input codewords into corresponding DAC switches, we present three algorithms with varying computational complexities. We perform high-level Matlab simulations to illustrate the dynamic performance improvement over the segmented structure.
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Mykolas Sveistrys, Richard Kunert · 2025 · arXiv
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) has been used in question answering (QA) systems to improve performance when relevant information is in one (single-hop) or multiple (multi-hop) passages. However, many real life scenarios (e.g. dealing with financial, legal, medical reports) require checking all documents for relevant information without a clear stopping condition. We term these pluri-hop questions, and formalize them by 3 conditions - recall sensitivity, exhaustiveness, and exactness. To study this setting, we introduce PluriHopWIND, a multilingual diagnostic benchmark of 48 pluri-hop que
Negative / Null Result Report
David Mills · 2017 · Veterinary Evidence
Therapy and prognosis are entailed by the diagnosis: the holistic success of the EBVM approach therefore firmly and critically rests on diagnostic accuracy.Unfortunately, medical professionals do not appear to be very accurate with…
View details →DOI: 10.18849/ve.v2i3.147 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics
Asif Manzoor Hasan, Johan Larsson, Sergio Pirozzoli et al. · 2023 · arXiv
A transformation that relates a compressible wall-bounded turbulent flow with non-uniform fluid properties to an equivalent incompressible flow with uniform fluid properties is derived and validated. The transformation accounts for both variable-property and intrinsic compressibility effects, the latter being the key improvement over the current state-of-the-art. The importance of intrinsic compressibility effects contradicts the renowned Morkovin's hypothesis.
Replication FailureOpen accessComputer Science
Frank Meier, Hans Walliser · 1996 · arXiv
We present a procedure to calculate 1-loop graphs in the soliton sector of chiral Lagrangians and use it to calculate quantum corrections to certain baryon observables in Skyrme-type models. Results generally show an improvement over the values obtained in tree approximation except for the case of the axial coupling g_A.
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Xu Ma, Jiajie Zhang, Fujing Xie et al. · 2025 · arXiv
Global localization is essential for autonomous robotics, especially in indoor environments where the GPS signal is denied. We propose a novel WiFi-based localization framework that leverages ubiquitous wireless infrastructure and the OpenStreetMap Area Graph (osmAG) for large-scale indoor environments. Our approach integrates signal propagation modeling with osmAG's geometric and topological priors. In the offline phase, an iterative optimization algorithm localizes WiFi Access Points (APs) by modeling wall attenuation, achieving a mean localization error of 3.79 m (35.3\% improvement over tr
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMathematics
John Rozmarynowycz, Seungki Kim · 2023 · arXiv
We report the finding of the new upper bound on the lowest positive integer $x$ for which the Mertens conjecture \begin{equation*} \left| \sum_{1 \leq n \leq x} μ(n) \right| < \sqrt{x} \end{equation*} fails to hold: $x < \exp(1.017 \times 10^{29})$, an improvement over previously known $\exp(1.59 \times 10^{40})$ due to Kotnik and te Riele [7].
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMathematics
D. R. Heath-Brown · 2026 · arXiv
We show that there are $O(B^{3/5-3/1555+\ep})$ triples $(x,y,z)$ of square-full integesr up to $B$ satisfying the equation $x+y=z$ for any fixed $\ep>0$. This is the first improvement over the `easy' exponent $3/5$, given by Browning and Van Valckenborgh. One new tool is a strong uniform bound for the counting function for equations $aX^3+bY^3=cZ^3$.
Negative / Null Result Report
Timothy Daniel Allerton, Stefany D. Primeaux · 2013 · The FASEB Journal
The propensity for some individuals to develop obesity has been linked to intake of a high fat diet (HFD) and physical inactivity. However, some individuals resist obesity through improved energy sensing and other compensatory measures to…
View details →DOI: 10.1096/fasebj.27.1_supplement.1153.5 Negative / Null Result Report
Rosario Milelli · 2026 · Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, and Human-Centered Computing
ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, has become a central tool in my professional workflow, supporting scholarly research, editorial writing, and creative projects. Drawing on extensive practical use, this perspective highlights both its…
View details →DOI: 10.66311/3069-2318.02.01.02 Negative / Null Result Report
Mohd Faris Dziauddin · 2023 · PLANNING MALAYSIA
It is generally believed that public transport investment such as urban rail transit systems can improve accessibility, particularly in larger and denser metropolitan areas. The improved accessibility provided by urban rail transit systems…
View details →DOI: 10.21837/pm.v21i25.1243 Negative / Null Result Report
Larry Chen, Emily Berzolla, Griffith Gosnell et al. · 2025 · Journal of Hip Preservation Surgery
Abstract Background While hip arthroscopy (HA) has improved outcomes in femoroacetabular impingement syndrome (FAIS), advanced age has been considered a negative predictor of outcomes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate long-term…
View details →DOI: 10.1093/jhps/hnaf069.053 Failed Experiment Report
· 2024 · Multimedia Manual of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery
The Ross procedure provides young patients with unrepairable aortic valve disease with a living pulmonary autograft that confers significant survival benefit and improved quality of life. However, the procedure is complicated, and surgeons…
View details →DOI: 10.1510/mmcts.2024.095 Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics
Ulrich H. E. Hansmann · 1997 · arXiv
We discuss the use of Tsallis generalized mechanics in simulated annealing algorithms. For a small peptide it is shown that older implementations are not more effective than regular simulated annealing in finding ground state configurations. We propose a new implementation which leads to an improvement over regular simulated annealing.
Failed Experiment Report
Liudmila Zakharova, Hikmet Nural, James R Nimlos et al. · 2013 · Circulation Research
A pilot clinical study using autologous c-Kit+ cells showed improvement in cardiac functions in congestive heart failure (CHF), however, it is unclear if c-Kit+ cells isolated from CHF hearts are equally as potent as cells from controls.…
View details →DOI: 10.1161/res.113.suppl_1.a131 