Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Runtian Zhai, Chen Dan, Zico Kolter et al. · 2022 · arXiv
Empirical risk minimization (ERM) is known in practice to be non-robust to distributional shift where the training and the test distributions are different. A suite of approaches, such as importance weighting, and variants of distributionally robust optimization (DRO), have been proposed to solve this problem. But a line of recent work has empirically shown that these approaches do not significantly improve over ERM in real applications with distribution shift. The goal of this work is to obtain a comprehensive theoretical understanding of this intriguing phenomenon. We first posit the class o
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Niek Beckers, Edwin van Asseldonk, Herman van der Kooij · 2020 · arXiv
Haptic interaction between two humans, for example, a physiotherapist assisting a patient regaining the ability to grasp a cup, likely facilitates motor skill acquisition. Haptic human-human interaction has been shown to enhance individual performance improvement in a tracking task with a visuomotor rotation perturbation. These results are remarkable given that haptically assisting or guiding an individual rarely benefits their individual improvement when the assistance is removed. We, therefore, replicated a study that reported that haptic interaction between humans was beneficial for individ
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Shufan Wang, Yixiao Song, Andrew Drozdov et al. · 2023 · arXiv
In this paper, we study the generation quality of interpolation-based retrieval-augmented language models (LMs). These methods, best exemplified by the KNN-LM, interpolate the LM's predicted distribution of the next word with a distribution formed from the most relevant retrievals for a given prefix. While the KNN-LM and related methods yield impressive decreases in perplexity, we discover that they do not exhibit corresponding improvements in open-ended generation quality, as measured by both automatic evaluation metrics (e.g., MAUVE) and human evaluations. Digging deeper, we find that interp
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Thomas Vogel, Chinh Tran, Lars Grunske · 2019 · arXiv
In search-based software engineering we often use popular heuristics with default configurations, which typically lead to suboptimal results, or we perform experiments to identify configurations on a trial-and-error basis, which may lead to better results for a specific problem. To obtain better results while avoiding trial-and-error experiments, a fitness landscape analysis is helpful in understanding the search problem, and making an informed decision about the heuristics. In this paper, we investigate the search problem of test suite generation for mobile applications (apps) using SAPIENZ w
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics
B. Megyeri, A. Lampis, G. Harvie et al. · 2017 · arXiv
We discuss the prospects for enhancing absorption and scattering of light from a weakly coupled atom in a high-finesse optical cavity by adding a medium with large, positive group index of refraction. The slow-light effect is known to narrow the cavity transmission spectrum and increase the photon lifetime, but the quality factor of the cavity may not be increased in a metrologically useful sense. Specifically, detection of the weakly coupled atom through either cavity ringdown measurements or the Purcell effect fails to improve with the addition of material slow light. A single-atom model of
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Roland S. Zimmermann, Thomas Klein, Wieland Brendel · 2023 · arXiv
In light of the recent widespread adoption of AI systems, understanding the internal information processing of neural networks has become increasingly critical. Most recently, machine vision has seen remarkable progress by scaling neural networks to unprecedented levels in dataset and model size. We here ask whether this extraordinary increase in scale also positively impacts the field of mechanistic interpretability. In other words, has our understanding of the inner workings of scaled neural networks improved as well? We use a psychophysical paradigm to quantify one form of mechanistic inter
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Xirui Li, Ming Li, Tianyi Zhou · 2026 · arXiv
Reinforcement learning (RL) with verifiable rewards has become a standard post-training stage for boosting visual reasoning in vision-language models, yet it remains unclear what capabilities RL actually improves compared with supervised fine-tuning as cold-start initialization (IN). End-to-end benchmark gains conflate multiple factors, making it difficult to attribute improvements to specific skills. To bridge the gap, we propose a Frankenstein-style analysis framework including: (i) functional localization via causal probing; (ii) update characterization via parameter comparison; and (iii) t
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Masahito Hayashi · 2025 · arXiv
We consider estimation of unknown unitary operation when the set of possible unitary operations is given by a projective unitary representation of a compact group. We show that neither indefinite causal order strategy nor adaptive strategy improves the performance of this estimation when error function satisfies group covariance. That is, the optimal parallel strategy gives the optimal performance even under indefinite causal order strategy and adaptive strategy. To study this problem, we newly introduce the concept of generalized positive operator valued measure (GPOVM), and its convariance c
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics
Chao Shen, Yu Liu, Tianquan Tang et al. · 2023 · arXiv
The term `sub-wavelength' is commonly used to describe innovative sound-absorbing structures usually labeled as `metamaterials'. Such structures, however, inherently do not bring groundbreaking advancements. This study addresses the limitations imposed by the thickness criterion of Yang et al. by introducing the concept of equivalent mass-spring-damping parameters within the resonator framework. This innovative approach introduces an index of `half-absorption bandwidth' to effectively overcome the thickness restriction. Four practical cases are then presented to correct prevalent misleading co
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Paul Schneider, Amalie Schramm · 2025 · arXiv
Structured deliberation has been found to improve the performance of human forecasters. This study investigates whether a similar intervention, i.e. allowing LLMs to review each other's forecasts before updating, can improve accuracy in large language models (GPT-5, Claude Sonnet 4.5, Gemini Pro 2.5). Using 202 resolved binary questions from the Metaculus Q2 2025 AI Forecasting Tournament, accuracy was assessed across four scenarios: (1) diverse models with distributed information, (2) diverse models with shared information, (3) homogeneous models with distributed information, and (4) homogene
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Mark A. Rubin, Sumanth Kaushik · 2006 · arXiv
The signal-to-noise ratio for heterodyne laser radar with a coherent target-return beam and a squeezed local-oscillator beam is lower than that obtained using a coherent local oscillator, regardless of the method employed to combine the beams at the detector.
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics
Martin Amft, Natalia V. Skorodumova · 2011 · arXiv
The present density functional theory study addresses the question whether the presence of H2O influences the catalytic activity of small gold clusters, Au1-4/MgO(100), towards the oxidation of carbon monoxide. To this end, we studied the (co-)adsorption of H2O and CO/O2 on these gold clusters. The ground state structures in the presence of all three molecular species, that we found, are Au1O2/MgO and Au2-4CO/MgO with H2O adsorbed on the surface in the proximity of the clusters-molecule complex. In this configuration the catalytic activity of Au1-4/MgO is indifferent to the presence of H2O. We
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Hongyu Zhou, Yinan Zhang, Aixin Sun et al. · 2025 · arXiv
Multimodal recommendation systems are increasingly popular for their potential to improve performance by integrating diverse data types. However, the actual benefits of this integration remain unclear, raising questions about when and how it truly enhances recommendations. In this paper, we propose a structured evaluation framework to systematically assess multimodal recommendations across four dimensions: Comparative Efficiency, Recommendation Tasks, Recommendation Stages, and Multimodal Data Integration. We benchmark a set of reproducible multimodal models against strong traditional baseline
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Saikat Mondal, Chanchal K. Roy · 2025 · arXiv
High-quality answers in technical Q&A platforms like Stack Overflow (SO) are crucial as they directly influence software development practices. Poor-quality answers can introduce inefficiencies, bugs, and security vulnerabilities, and thus increase maintenance costs and technical debt in production software. To improve content quality, SO allows collaborative editing, where users revise answers to enhance clarity, correctness, and formatting. Several studies have examined rejected edits and identified the causes of rejection. However, prior research has not systematically assessed whether acce
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences
Denis Boyer, Peter D. Walsh · 2010 · arXiv
Thanks to recent technological advances, it is now possible to track with an unprecedented precision and for long periods of time the movement patterns of many living organisms in their habitat. The increasing amount of data available on single trajectories offers the possibility of understanding how animals move and of testing basic movement models. Random walks have long represented the main description for micro-organisms and have also been useful to understand the foraging behaviour of large animals. Nevertheless, most vertebrates, in particular humans and other primates, rely on sophistic
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Aaron B. Wagner, Nirmal V. Shende, Yücel Altuğ · 2019 · arXiv
We introduce a novel mechanism, called timid/bold coding, by which feedback can be used to improve coding performance. For a certain class of DMCs, called compound-dispersion channels, we show that timid/bold coding allows for an improved second-order coding rate compared with coding without feedback. For DMCs that are not compound dispersion, we show that feedback does not improve the second-order coding rate. Thus we completely determine the class of DMCs for which feedback improves the second-order coding rate. An upper bound on the second-order coding rate is provided for compound-dispersi
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Lennart Luettgau, Vanessa Cheung, Magda Dubois et al. · 2025 · arXiv
People increasingly seek personal advice from large language models (LLMs), yet whether humans follow their advice, and its consequences for their well-being, remains unknown. In a longitudinal randomised controlled trial with a representative UK sample (N = 6,474), we found that up to 79% of participants who had a 20-minute discussion with one of three AI chatbots (GPT-4o, LLama-3.3-70B, Gemini 3 Pro) about health, careers or relationships subsequently reported following its advice. Advice-following remained above 60% even for high-stakes recommendations, suggesting that users only weakly cal
Failed Experiment ReportOpen accessComputer Science
V. Vedral · 1999 · arXiv
We investigate asymptotic distillation of entanglement in the presence of an unlimited amount of bound entanglement for bi-partite systems. We show that the distillability is still bounded by the relative entropy of entanglement. This offers a strong support to the fact that bound entanglement does not improve distillation of entanglement.
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Ruhollah Majdoddin · 2014 · arXiv
AFP Algorithm is a learning algorithm for Horn formulas. We show that it does not improve the complexity of AFP Algorithm, if after each negative counterexample more that just one refinements are performed. Moreover, a canonical normal form for Horn formulas is presented, and it is proved that the output formula of AFP Algorithm is in this normal form.
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Masahito Hayashi · 2008 · arXiv
The optimal exponential error rate for adaptive discrimination of two channels is discussed. In this problem, adaptive choice of input signal is allowed. This problem is discussed in various settings. It is proved that adaptive choice does not improve the exponential error rate in these settings. These results are applied to quantum state discrimination.
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Kazutoshi Shinoda, Saku Sugawara, Akiko Aizawa · 2022 · arXiv
Question answering (QA) models are shown to be insensitive to large perturbations to inputs; that is, they make correct and confident predictions even when given largely perturbed inputs from which humans can not correctly derive answers. In addition, QA models fail to generalize to other domains and adversarial test sets, while humans maintain high accuracy. Based on these observations, we assume that QA models do not use intended features necessary for human reading but rely on spurious features, causing the lack of generalization ability. Therefore, we attempt to answer the question: If the
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Vasilis Niarchos, Constantinos Papageorgakis, Alexander G. Stapleton et al. · 2026 · arXiv
As large language models (LLMs) show increasing promise on research-level physics reasoning tasks and agentic AI becomes more common, a practical question emerges: How does the interaction between researchers and agents affect the results? We study this using SCALAR (Structured Critic--Actor Loop for AI Reasoning), an Actor--Critic--Judge pipeline applied to quantum field theory and string theory problems. The Actor proposes solutions, the Critic provides iterative feedback, and an independent Judge evaluates the transcript against reference solutions. We vary the Actor persona, the Critic fee
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Taeho Kang, Yiyu Chen, Christian Wallraven · 2026 · arXiv
In this paper, we conduct a detailed investigation on the effect of independent component (IC)-based noise rejection methods in neural network classifier-based decoding of electroencephalography (EEG) data in different task datasets. We apply a pipeline matrix of two popular different independent component (IC) decomposition methods (Infomax and Adaptive Mixture Independent Component Analysis (AMICA)) with three different component rejection strategies (none, ICLabel, and multiple artifact rejection algorithm [MARA]) on three different EEG datasets (motor imagery, long-term memory formation, a
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Kaiyuan Li, Jing-Cheng Pang, Yang Yu · 2026 · arXiv
Reinforcement learning from verifiable rewards (RLVR) stimulates the thinking processes of large language models (LLMs), substantially enhancing their reasoning abilities on verifiable tasks. It is often assumed that similar gains should transfer to general question answering (GQA), but this assumption has not been thoroughly validated. To assess whether RLVR automatically improves LLM performance on GQA, we propose a Cross-Generation evaluation framework that measures the quality of intermediate reasoning by feeding the generated thinking context into LLMs of varying capabilities. Our evaluat
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Courtney Celian, Partha Ryali, Valentino Wilson et al. · 2024 · arXiv
Background: Gravity confounds arm movement ability in post-stroke hemiparesis. Reducing its influence allows effective practice leading to recovery. Yet, there is a scarcity of wearable devices suitable for personalized use across diverse therapeutic activities in the clinic. Objective: In this study, we investigated the safety, feasibility, and efficacy of anti-gravity therapy using the ExoNET device in post-stroke participants. Methods: Twenty chronic stroke survivors underwent six, 45-minute occupational therapy sessions while wearing the ExoNET, randomized into either the treatment (ExoNET
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
J. C. Caillon, J. Labarsouque · 1993 · arXiv
In the calculation of the $K^+$-nucleus cross sections, the coupling of the mesons exchanged between the $K^+$ and the target nucleons to the polarization of the Fermi sea has been taken into account. This polarization has been calculated in the one-loop approximation but summed up to all orders (RPA-type calculation). This effect is found to be rather important but does not improve the agreement with experiment.
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics
Maria Patricia Rouelli Sabino, Sze Ter Lim, Michael Tran · 2014 · arXiv
We show by vector network analyzer ferromagnetic resonance measurements that low Gilbert damping α down to 0.006 can be achieved in perpendicularly magnetized MgO/CoFeB/MgO thin films with ultra-thin insertions of Ta in the CoFeB layer. While increasing the number of Ta insertions allows thicker CoFeB layers to remain perpendicular, the effective areal magnetic anisotropy does not improve with more insertions, and also comes with an increase in α.
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
Paolo Bellomo, C. R. Stroud, · 1998 · arXiv
We study the dispersion of the "temporally stable" coherent states for the hydrogen atom introduced by Klauder. These are states which under temporal evolution by the hydrogen atom Hamiltonian retain their coherence properties. We show that in the hydrogen atom such wave packets do not move quasi-classically; i.e., they do not follow with no or little dispersion the Keplerian orbits of the classical electron. The poor quantum-classical correspondence does not improve in the semiclassical limit.
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science
R. N. Stevenson, A. R. R. Carvalho, J. J. Hope · 2010 · arXiv
We examine the theoretical limits of the generation of entanglement in a damped coupled ion-cavity system using jump-based feedback. Using Raman transitions to produce entanglement between ground states reduces the necessary feedback bandwidth, but does not improve the overall effect of the spontaneous emission on the final entanglement. We find that the fidelity of the resulting entanglement will be limited by the asymmetries produced by vibrations in the trap, but that the concurrence remains above 0.88 for realistic ion trap sizes.
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics
Yuto Urano, Xue Mengsong, Kenji Watanabe et al. · 2023 · arXiv
We investigate the valley coherence in high and low-quality monolayer MoSe2 by polarization-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy. The observed valley coherence is on the order of 10 % regardless of the sample quality, proving that the suppression of extrinsic effects does not improve the valley coherence. The valley decoherence time estimated based on the valley coherence time and exciton lifetime is sub-picosecond at the longest, which suggests that intrinsic scattering sources, such as phonons, strongly limit the valley coherence.
