Despite progress in deep learning for shared micromobility demand prediction, the systematic design and statistical validation of temporal input structures remain underexplored. Temporal features are often selected heuristically, even though historical demand strongly affects model performance and generalizability. This paper introduces a reproducible data-processing pipeline and a statistically grounded method for designing temporal input structures for image-to-image demand prediction. Using large-scale e-scooter data from Austin, Texas, we build a grid-based spatiotemporal dataset by converting trip records into hourly pickup and dropoff demand images. The pipeline includes trip filtering, mapping Census Tracts to spatial locations, grid construction, demand aggregation, and creation of a global activity mask that limits evaluation to historically active areas. This representation supports consistent spatial learning while preserving demand patterns. We then introduce a combined correlation- and error-based procedure to identify informative historical inputs. Optimal temporal depth is selected through an ablation study using a baseline UNET model with paired non-parametric tests
This study explores the integration of AI in transportation electrification planning in Austin, TX, focusing on the use of Geospatial AI (GeoAI), Generative AI (GenAI), and Large Language Models (LLMs). GeoAI enhances site selection, localized GenAI models support meta-level estimations, and LLMs enable scenario simulations. These AI applications require human oversight. GeoAI outputs must be evaluated with land use data, GenAI models are not always accurate, and LLMs are prone to hallucinations. To ensure accountable planning, human planners must work alongside AI agents. Establishing a community feedback loop is essential to audit automated decisions. Planners should place Community Experience (CX) at the center of Urban Planning AI.
The UT GraphCast Hindcast Dataset from 1979 to 2024 is a comprehensive global weather forecast archive generated using the Google DeepMind GraphCast Operational model. Developed by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin under the WCRP umbrella, this dataset provides daily 15 day deterministic forecasts at 00UTC on an approximately 25 km global grid for a 45 year period. GraphCast is a physics informed graph neural network that was trained on ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis. It predicts more than a dozen key atmospheric and surface variables on 37 vertical levels, delivering a full medium range forecast in under one minute on modern hardware.
Emergency Medical Systems (EMS) provide crucial pre-hospital care and transportation. Faster EMS response time provides quicker pre-hospital care and thus increases survival rate. We reduce response time by providing optimal ambulance stationing and routing decisions by solving two stage stochastic and robust linear programs. Although operational research on ambulance systems is decades old, there is little open-source code and consistency in simulations. We begin to bridge this gap by publishing OpenEMS, in collaboration with the Austin-Travis County EMS (ATCEMS) in Texas, an end-to-end pipeline to optimize ambulance strategic decisions. It includes data handling, optimization, and a calibrated simulation. We hope this open source framework will foster future research with and for EMS. Finally, we provide a detailed case study on the city of Austin, Texas. We find that optimal stationing would increase response time by 88.02 seconds. Further, we design optimal strategies in the case where Austin EMS must permanently add or remove one ambulance from their fleet.
In 2020 the tragic murder of George Floyd at the hands of law enforcement ignited and intensified nationwide protests, demanding changes in police funding and allocation. This happened during a budgeting feedback exercise where residents of Austin, Texas were invited to share opinions on the budgets of various city service areas, including the Police Department, on an online platform designed by our team. Daily responses increased by a hundredfold and responses registered after the "exogenous shock" overwhelmingly advocated for reducing police funding. This opinion shift far exceeded what we observed in 14 other Participatory Budgeting elections on our Participatory Budgeting Platform, and can't be explained by shifts in the respondent demographics. Analysis of the results from an Austin budgetary feedback exercise in 2021 and a follow-up survey indicates that the opinion shift from 2020 persisted, with the opinion gap on police funding widening. We conclude that there was an actual change of opinion regarding police funding. This study not only sheds light on the enduring impact of the 2020 events and protests on public opinion, but also showcases the value of analysis of clustere
Urban downscaling is a link to transfer the knowledge from coarser climate information to city scale assessments. These high-resolution assessments need multiyear climatology of past data and future projections, which are complex and computationally expensive to generate using traditional numerical weather prediction models. The city of Austin, Texas, USA has seen tremendous growth in the past decade. Systematic planning for the future requires the availability of fine resolution city-scale datasets. In this study, we demonstrate a novel approach generating a general purpose operator using deep learning to perform urban downscaling. The algorithm employs an iterative super-resolution convolutional neural network (Iterative SRCNN) over the city of Austin, Texas, USA. We show the development of a high-resolution gridded precipitation product (300 m) from a coarse (10 km) satellite-based product (JAXA GsMAP). High resolution gridded datasets of precipitation offer insights into the spatial distribution of heavy to low precipitation events in the past. The algorithm shows improvement in the mean peak-signal-to-noise-ratio and mutual information to generate high resolution gridded produ
The purpose of this note is to present my understanding of Tim Austin's proof of the multiple ergodic theorem for commuting transformations, emphasizing on the use of joinings, extensions and factors. The existence of a sated extension, which is a key argument in the proof, is presented in a general context.
E-scooter-sharing and e-bike-sharing systems are accommodating and easing the increased traffic in dense cities and are expanding considerably. However, these new micro-mobility transportation modes raise numerous operational and safety concerns. This study analyzes e-scooter and dockless e-bike sharing system user behavior. We investigate how average trip speed change depending on the day of the week and the time of the day. We used a dataset from the city of Austin, TX from December 2018 to May 2019. Our results generally show that the trip average speed for e-bikes ranges between 3.01 and 3.44 m/s, which is higher than that for e-scooters (2.19 to 2.78 m/s). Results also show a similar usage pattern for the average speed of e-bikes and e-scooters throughout the days of the week and a different usage pattern for the average speed of e-bikes and e-scooters over the hours of the day. We found that users tend to ride e-bikes and e-scooters with a slower average speed for recreational purposes compared to when they are ridden for commuting purposes. This study is a building block in this field, which serves as a first of its kind, and sheds the light of significant new understanding
The fundamental problem on which Ilya Prigogine and the Brussels-Austin Group have focused can be stated briefly as follows. Our observations indicate that there is an arrow of time in our experience of the world (e.g., decay of unstable radioactive atoms like Uranium, or the mixing of cream in coffee). Most of the fundamental equations of physics are time reversible, however, presenting an apparent conflict between our theoretical descriptions and experimental observations. Many have thought that the observed arrow of time was either an artifact of our observations or due to very special initial conditions. An alternative approach, followed by the Brussels-Austin Group, is to consider the observed direction of time to be a basics physical phenomenon and to develop a mathematical formalism that can describe this direction as being due to the dynamics of physical systems. In part I of this essay, I review and assess an attempt to carry out an approach that received much of their attention from the early 1970s to the mid 1980s. In part II, I will discuss their more recent approach using rigged Hilbert spaces.
RoboCup@Home is an international robotics competition based on domestic tasks requiring autonomous capabilities pertaining to a large variety of AI technologies. Research challenges are motivated by these tasks both at the level of individual technologies and the integration of subsystems into a fully functional, robustly autonomous system. We describe the progress made by the UT Austin Villa 2019 RoboCup@Home team which represents a significant step forward in AI-based HRI due to the breadth of tasks accomplished within a unified system. Presented are the competition tasks, component technologies they rely on, our initial approaches both to the components and their integration, and directions for future research.
Recent 3D Gaussian splatting methods built atop SMPL achieve remarkable visual fidelity while continually increasing the complexity of the overall training architecture. We demonstrate that much of this complexity is unnecessary: by replacing SMPL with the Momentum Human Rig (MHR), estimated via SAM-3D-Body, a minimal pipeline with no learned deformations or pose-dependent corrections achieves the highest reported PSNR and competitive or superior LPIPS and SSIM on PeopleSnapshot and ZJU-MoCap. To disentangle pose estimation quality from body model representational capacity, we perform two controlled ablations: translating SAM-3D-Body meshes to SMPL-X, and translating the original dataset's SMPL poses into MHR both retrained under identical conditions. These ablations confirm that body model expressiveness has been a primary bottleneck in avatar reconstruction, with both mesh representational capacity and pose estimation quality contributing meaningfully to the full pipeline's gains.
EEG recordings contain rich information about neural activity but are subject to artifacts, noise, and superficial differences due to sensors, amplifiers, and filtering. Independent component analysis and automatic labeling of independent components (ICs) enable artifact removal in EEG pipelines. Convolutional Monge Mapping Normalization (CMMN) is a recent tool used to achieve spectral conformity of EEG signals, which was shown to improve deep neural network approaches for sleep staging. Here we propose a novel extension of the CMMN method with two alternative approaches to computing the source reference spectrum the target signals are mapped to: (1) channel-averaged and $l_1$-normalized barycenter, and (2) a subject-to-subject mapping that finds the source subject with the closest spectrum to the target subject. Notably, our extension yields space-time separable filters that can be used to map between datasets with different numbers of EEG channels. We apply these filters in an IC classification task, and show significant improvement in recognizing brain versus non-brain ICs. Clinical relevance - EEG recordings are used in the diagnosis and monitoring of multiple neuropathologies,
This work studies certain notions of entropy that can be associated to (i) a representation of a separable, unital C*-algebra $\mathfrak{A}$ and (ii) an auxiliary random sequence $(π_n)_{n\ge 1}$ of finite-dimensional representations of $\mathfrak{A}$. This continues a previous research program into the properties of these entropy notions when each $π_n$ is deterministic, which uncovered a range of analogies with entropy in ergodic theory and also with non-commutative generalizations of Szegő's limit theorems. We associate two new notions of entropy to data as in (i) and (ii) above: `annealed' AP entropy, which is roughly a kind of first-moment average of deterministic AP entropies; and `zeroth-order' AP entropy, which controls the large deviations probabilities that certain positive definite functions appear in the representations $π_n$ at all. After developing some of this general theory, we then focus on the special case in which $\mathfrak{A}$ is the group C*-algebra of a finitely-generated free group and each $π_n$ is generated by choosing a tuple of $n$-by-$n$ unitary matrices independently at random from Haar measure. In that case, explicit formulas can be derived for some o
Ergodic theory includes several notions of entropy for probability-preserving actions of countable groups. These include Kolmogorov--Sinai entropy based on Følner sequences for amenable groups, entropy defined using a random ordering of the group, and Bowen's sofic entropy for sofic groups. In this work we pursue these notions across an analogy between ergodic theory and representation theory. We arrive at new quantities associated to unitary representations of groups and representations of other C*-algebras. Our main results show that these new quantities can often be evaluated as Fuglede--Kadison determinants. The resulting determinantal formulas offer various non-commutative generalizations of Szegő's limit theorem for Toeplitz determinants. They make contact with Arveson's theory of subdiagonal subalgebras, and also with some entropy formulas in the ergodic theory of actions by automorphisms of compact Abelian groups.
Prompt engineering for large language models (LLMs) is often a manual time-intensive process that involves generating, evaluating, and refining prompts iteratively to ensure high-quality outputs. While there has been work on automating prompt engineering, the solutions generally are either tuned to specific tasks with given answers or are quite costly. We introduce GRAD-SUM, a scalable and flexible method for automatic prompt engineering that builds on gradient-based optimization techniques. Our approach incorporates user-defined task descriptions and evaluation criteria, and features a novel gradient summarization module to generalize feedback effectively. Our results demonstrate that GRAD-SUM consistently outperforms existing methods across various benchmarks, highlighting its versatility and effectiveness in automatic prompt optimization.
Let $S$ and $T$ be measure-preserving transformations of a probability space $(X,{\mathcal B},μ)$. Let $f$ be a bounded measurable functions, and consider the integrals of the corresponding `double' ergodic averages: \[\frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=0}^{n-1} \int f(S^ix)f(T^ix)\ dμ(x) \qquad (n\ge 1).\] We construct examples for which these integrals do not converge as $n\to\infty$. These include examples in which $S$ and $T$ are rigid, and hence have entropy zero, answering a question of Frantzikinakis and Host. Our proof begins with a corresponding construction for orthogonal operators on a Hilbert space, and then obtains transformations of a Gaussian measure space from them.
In this report, we introduce the Gemini 2.X model family: Gemini 2.5 Pro and Gemini 2.5 Flash, as well as our earlier Gemini 2.0 Flash and Flash-Lite models. Gemini 2.5 Pro is our most capable model yet, achieving SoTA performance on frontier coding and reasoning benchmarks. In addition to its incredible coding and reasoning skills, Gemini 2.5 Pro is a thinking model that excels at multimodal understanding and it is now able to process up to 3 hours of video content. Its unique combination of long context, multimodal and reasoning capabilities can be combined to unlock new agentic workflows. Gemini 2.5 Flash provides excellent reasoning abilities at a fraction of the compute and latency requirements and Gemini 2.0 Flash and Flash-Lite provide high performance at low latency and cost. Taken together, the Gemini 2.X model generation spans the full Pareto frontier of model capability vs cost, allowing users to explore the boundaries of what is possible with complex agentic problem solving.
Space solar power (SSP), envisioned for decades as a solution for continuous, stable, and dynamically dispatchable clean energy, has seen tremendous interest and a number of experimental demonstrations in the last few years. A practical implementation has been elusive to date, owing to the high launch costs associated with heavy, rigid photovoltaic (PV) and wireless power transfer (WPT) arrays. Lightweight and flexible solutions for WPT have been demonstrated terrestrially but, to date, have not been deployed and tested in space. In this paper, we present an experimental space demonstration of a lightweight, flexible WPT array powered by custom radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). The transmit arrays, receive arrays, and the rest of the system were operated and tested for eight months in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Results from these experiments, including pointing of the array's beam to Earth and its detection by a ground station, are presented and discussed in detail. Observations and results from this mission uncover existing strengths and weaknesses that inform future steps toward realizing SSP.
Chain-of-thought (CoT) outputs let us read a model's step-by-step reasoning. Since any long, serial reasoning process must pass through this textual trace, the quality of the CoT is a direct window into what the model is thinking. This visibility could help us spot unsafe or misaligned behavior (monitorability), but only if the CoT is transparent about its internal reasoning (faithfulness). Fully measuring faithfulness is difficult, so researchers often focus on examining the CoT in cases where the model changes its answer after adding a cue to the input. This proxy finds some instances of unfaithfulness but loses information when the model maintains its answer, and does not investigate aspects of reasoning not tied to the cue. We extend these results to a more holistic sense of monitorability by introducing verbosity: whether the CoT lists every factor needed to solve the task. We combine faithfulness and verbosity into a single monitorability score that shows how well the CoT serves as the model's external `working memory', a property that many safety schemes based on CoT monitoring depend on. We evaluate instruction-tuned and reasoning models on BBH, GPQA, and MMLU. Our results