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Chart Question Answering (CQA) requires models to perform chart perception and reasoning. Recent studies driven by Large Language Models (LLMs) have dominated CQA. These include employing more cognitively capable LLMs for indirectly reasoning over transformed charts, i.e., tables, and directly perceiving charts utilizing Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) with a wider perceptual range. Yet, they often encounter bottlenecks due to the limitation of the receptive field of LLMs and the fragility of the complex reasoning of MLLMs. To unite the strengths of LLMs and MLLMs to complement each other&#39;s limitations, we propose Synergy, a framework that unites the power of both models for CQA. Synergy first unites the chart with a table as the augmented perceptual signal. Next, it unites LLMs and MLLMs, scheduling the former to decompose a question into subquestions and the latter to answer these by perceiving the chart. Lastly, it operates LLMs to summarize the subquestion-answer pairs to refine the final answer. Extensive experimental results on popular CharQA and PlotQA benchmarks reveal that, with the power of union, Synergy outperforms strong competitors and achieves superior boosts over naive MLLMs by uniting them with a smaller LLM.

AAAI 2025

Union is Strength! Unite the Power of LLMs and MLLMs for Chart Question Answering

## Welcome!
"I am excited to welcome you to this year’s edition of the Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing! Importantly, it marks the 30th edition of EMNLP. With over 8,000 submissions, more than 3,000 accepted papers, and thousands of attendees, we have come a long way from that first
workshop, which had 14 accepted papers. As the field looks ahead, Suzhou is the fitting location for celebrating this milestone: rooted in a long literary tradition, yet modern and forward-looking, and home to a large share of the NLP community." 

*Message from the General Chair, Dirk Hovy*

EMNLP 2025

Celebrate 30 Years of EMNLP! 
EMNLP 2025 will be held in Suzhou, China from November 5th to November 9th, 2025.

Chart Question Answering (CQA) requires models to perform chart perception and reasoning. Recent studies driven by Large Language Models (LLMs) have dominated CQA. These include employing more cognitively capable LLMs for indirectly reasoning over transformed charts, i.e., tables, and directly perceiving charts utilizing Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) with a wider perceptual range. Yet, they often encounter bottlenecks due to the limitation of the receptive field of LLMs and the fragility of the complex reasoning of MLLMs. To unite the strengths of LLMs and MLLMs to complement each other's limitations, we propose Synergy, a framework that unites the power of both models for CQA. Synergy first unites the chart with a table as the augmented perceptual signal. Next, it unites LLMs and MLLMs, scheduling the former to decompose a question into subquestions and the latter to answer these by perceiving the chart. Lastly, it operates LLMs to summarize the subquestion-answer pairs to refine the final answer. Extensive experimental results on popular CharQA and PlotQA benchmarks reveal that, with the power of union, Synergy outperforms strong competitors and achieves superior boosts over naive MLLMs by uniting them with a smaller LLM.

poster

We are pleased to announce the Thirty-Ninth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-25), which will be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the Pennsylvania Convention Center from February 25 to March 4, 2025.

The purpose of the AAAI conference series is to promote research in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and foster scientific exchange between researchers, practitioners, scientists, students, and engineers across the entirety of AI and its affiliated disciplines. AAAI-25 will feature technical paper presentations, special tracks, invited speakers, workshops, tutorials, poster sessions, senior member presentations, competitions, and exhibit programs, and a range of other activities to be announced.

### [Invited Speakers](https://aaai.org/conference/aaai/aaai-25/aaai-25-invited-speakers/)

Register [here](https://aaai.org/conference/aaai/aaai-25/registration/)

The purpose of the AAAI conference series is to promote research in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and foster scientific exchange between researchers, practitioners, scientists, students, and engineers across the entirety of AI and its affiliated disciplines. AAAI-25 will feature technical paper presentations, special tracks, invited speakers, workshops, tutorials, poster sessions, senior member presentations, competitions, and exhibit programs, and a range of other activities to be announced.



Person re-identification (re-ID) via 3D skeleton data is a challenging task with significant value in many scenarios. Existing skeleton-based methods typically assume virtual motion relations between all joints, and adopt average joint or sequence representations for learning. However, they rarely explore key body structure and motion such as gait to focus on more important body joints or limbs, while lacking the ability to fully mine valuable spatial-temporal sub-patterns of skeletons to enhance model learning. This paper presents a generic Motif guided graph transformer with Combinatorial skeleton prototype learning (MoCos) that exploits structure-specific and gait-related body relations as well as combinatorial features of skeleton graphs to learn effective skeleton representations for person re-ID. In particular, motivated by the locality within joints' structure and the body-component collaboration in gait, we first propose the motif guided graph transformer (MGT) that incorporates hierarchical structural motifs and gait collaborative motifs, which simultaneously focuses on multi-order local joint correlations and key cooperative body parts to enhance skeleton relation learning. Then, we devise the combinatorial skeleton prototype learning (CSP) that leverages random spatial-temporal combinations of joint nodes and skeleton graphs to generate diverse sub-skeleton and sub-tracklet representations, which are contrasted with the most representative features (prototypes) of each identity to learn class-related semantics and discriminative skeleton representations. Extensive experiments validate the superior performance of MoCos over existing state-of-the-art models. We further show its generality under RGB-estimated skeletons, different graph modeling, and unsupervised scenarios.

Motif Guided Graph Transformers with Combinatorial Skeleton Prototype Learning for Skeleton-Based Person Re-Identification

Large Language Model-based Dense Retrieval (LLM-DR) optimizes over numerous heterogeneous fine-tuning collections from different domains. However, the discussion about its training data distribution is still minimal. Previous studies rely on empirically assigned dataset choices or sampling ratios, which inevitably leads to sub-optimal retrieval performances. In this paper, we propose a new task-level Distributionally Robust Optimization (tDRO) algorithm for LLM-DR fine-tuning, targeted at improving the universal domain generalization ability by end-to-end reweighting the data distribution of each task. The tDRO parameterizes the domain weights and updates them with scaled domain gradients. The optimized weights are then transferred to the LLM-DR fine-tuning to train more robust retrievers. Experiments show optimal improvements in large-scale retrieval benchmarks and reduce up to 30\% dataset usage after applying our optimization algorithm with a series of different-sized LLM-DR models.

Task-level Distributionally Robust Optimization for Large Language Model-based Dense Retrieval

Visual storytelling involves generating a sequence of coherent frames from a textual storyline while maintaining consistency in characters and scenes. Existing autoregressive methods, which rely on previous frame-sentence pairs, struggle with high memory usage, slow generation speeds, and limited context integration. To address these issues, we propose ContextualStory, a novel framework designed to generate coherent story frames and extend frames for story continuation. ContextualStory utilizes Spatially-Enhanced Temporal Attention to capture spatial and temporal dependencies, handling significant character movements effectively. Additionally, we introduces a Storyline Contextualizer to enrich context in storyline embedding and a StoryFlow Adapter to measure scene changes between frames for guiding model. Extensive experiments on PororoSV and FlintstonesSV benchmarks demonstrate that ContextualStory significantly outperforms existing methods in both story visualization and story continuation.

ContextualStory: Consistent Visual Storytelling with Spatially-Enhanced and Storyline Context

Domain Generalized Semantic Segmentation (DGSS) aims to utilize segmentation model training on known source domains to make predictions on unknown target domains. Currently, there are two network architectures: one based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and the other based on Visual Transformers (ViTs). However, both CNN-based and ViT-based DGSS methods face challenges: the former lacks a global receptive field, while the latter requires more computational demands. Drawing inspiration from State Space Models (SSMs), which not only possess a global receptive field but also maintain linear complexity, we propose SSM-based method for achieving DGSS. In this work, we first elucidate why does $\textit{mask}$ make sense in SSM-based DGSS and propose our $\textit{mask}$ learning mechanism. Leveraging this mechanism, we present our $\textit{Mask Vision Mamba}$ network (MaskViM), a model for SSM-based DGSS, and design our $\textit{mask}$ loss to optimize MaskViM. Our method achieves superior performance on four diverse DGSS setting, which demonstrates the effectiveness of our method.

MaskViM: Domain Generalized Semantic Segmentation with State Space Models

Generative AI presents transformative potential across various domains, from creative arts to scientific visualization. However, the utility of AI-generated imagery is often compromised by visual flaws, including anatomical inaccuracies, improper object placements, and misplaced textual elements. These imperfections pose significant challenges for practical applications. To overcome these limitations, we introduce Yuan, a novel framework that autonomously corrects visual imperfections in text-to-image synthesis. Yuan uniquely conditions on both the textual prompt and the segmented image, generating precise masks that identify areas in need of refinement without requiring manual intervention—a common constraint in previous methodologies. Following the automated masking process, an advanced inpainting module seamlessly integrates contextually coherent content into the identified regions, preserving the integrity and fidelity of the original image and associated text prompts. Through extensive experimentation on publicly available datasets such as ImageNet100 and Stanford Dogs, along with a custom-generated dataset, Yuan demonstrated superior performance in eliminating visual imperfections. Our approach consistently achieved higher scores in quantitative metrics, including NIQE, BRISQUE, and PI, alongside favorable qualitative evaluations. These results underscore Yuan's potential to significantly enhance the quality and applicability of AI-generated images across diverse fields. The source code will be made available upon acceptance.

Yuan: Yielding Unblemished Aesthetics Through a Unified Network for Visual Imperfections Removal in Generated Images

For a data-generating process for random variables that can be described with a linear structural equation model, we consider a situation in which (i) a set of covariates satisfying the back-door criterion cannot be observed or (ii) such a set can be observed, but standard statistical estimation methods cannot be applied to estimate causal effects because of multicollinearity/high-dimensional data problems. We propose a novel two-stage penalized regression approach, the penalized covariate-mediator selection operator (PCM Selector), to estimate the causal effects in such scenarios. Unlike existing penalized regression analyses, when a set of intermediate variables is available, PCM Selector provides a consistent or less biased estimator of the causal effect. In addition, PCM Selector provides a variable selection procedure for intermediate variables to obtain better estimation accuracy of the causal effects than does the back-door criterion.

PCM Selector: Penalized Covariate-Mediator Selection Operator for Evaluating Linear Causal Effects

Universal domain adaptation (UniDA) transfers knowledge from a labelled source domain to an unlabelled target domain under domain-shift and category-shift for annotation. In reality, due to privacy protection or other limits, not only source data but also pre-trained models on it may be unavailable when training on target data. In this paper, we go a step further to explore the black-box universal domain adaptation (B$^{2}$-UniDA) problem. It requires tackling the labelling task under shifts by only accessing the interface of pre-trained source models. To this end, we introduce GSS which proposes a novel sample selection criterion based on gradient descent and Bayes' Theorem to identify samples of potential unknown classes. This criterion doesn't require manually-set thresholds depending on data used and is suitable for various datasets. GSS builds an open-set classifier and enables it to estimate probabilities of belonging to each class including the unknown category and adjust estimates adaptively. To overcome class-imbalance, especially imbalance between the unknown and known classes, we propose a balancing mechanism by measuring training status and estimating DA type. In addition to distilling knowledge from source model outputs, we focus on mining the categorical structure of target domain by self-training. Experiments on benchmarks show the state-of-the-art performance of GSS compared to typical methods, including source models or source data dependent methods.

Gradient-Based Sample Selection for Black-Box Universal Domain Adaptation

Detecting anomalies in business processes is crucial for ensuring operational success. While many existing methods rely on statistical frequency to detect anomalies, it's important to note that infrequent behavior doesn't necessarily imply undesirability. To address this challenge, detecting anomalies from a semantic viewpoint proves to be a more effective approach. However, current semantic anomaly detection methods  treat a trace (i.e., process instance) as multiple event pairs, disrupting long-distance dependencies. In this paper, we introduce DABL, a novel approach for detecting semantic anomalies in business processes using large language models (LLMs). We collect 143,137 real-world process models from various domains. By generating normal traces through the playout of these process models and simulating both ordering and exclusion anomalies, we fine-tune Llama 2 using the resulting log. Through extensive experiments, we demonstrate that DABL surpasses existing state-of-the-art semantic anomaly detection methods in terms of both generalization ability and learning of given processes. Users can directly apply DABL to detect semantic anomalies in their own datasets without the need for additional training. Furthermore, DABL offers the ability to interpret anomalies' causes in natural language, providing valuable insights into the detected anomalies.

DABL: Detecting Semantic Anomalies in Business Processes Using Large Language Models

We propose GGS, a Generalizable Gaussian Splatting method for Autonomous Driving which can achieve realistic rendering under large viewpoint changes. Previous generalizable 3D gaussian splatting methods are limited to rendering novel views that are very close to the original pair of images, which cannot handle large differences in viewpoint. Especially in autonomous driving scenarios, images are typically collected from a single lane. The limited training perspective makes rendering images of a different lane very challenging. To further improve the rendering capability of GGS under large viewpoint changes,  we introduces a novel virtual lane generation module into GSS method
to enables high-quality lane switching even without a multi-lane dataset. Besides, we design a diffusion loss to supervise the generation of virtual lane image to further address the problem of lack of data in the virtual lanes. 
Finally, we also propose a depth refinement module to optimize depth estimation in the GSS model. Extensive validation of our method, compared to existing approaches, demonstrates state-of-the-art performance.

GGS: Generalizable Gaussian Splatting for Lane Switching in Autonomous Driving

Multi-object tracking faces a major challenge in handling the variations of tracked targets within complex scenes. In existing transformer-based tracking methods, typically each tracked target is only associated with one track query. However, trajectories in crowded scenes often experience varying levels of occlusion, making the association brittle for using a single track query to identify the tracked target. Therefore, we argue that relying on a single track query to track a target in complex scenes is inadequate. In this paper, we introduce TGFormer, with the core idea of designing a Track Query Group for each tracked target. Each group encompasses track queries that handle the same tracked target across different levels of occlusion scenes. To achieve long-term robust association, we propose a novel updater that integrates temporal memories and occlusion-aware features to update the Track Query Group, ensuring the tracked target can be consistently captured in complex scenes. Additionally, we introduce a Position Predictor that allows TGFormer to forecast motion trends, helping the model accurately locate moving tracklets. Experiments show that our method enhances the metrics of the baseline method on the MOT Challenge and DanceTrack datasets, showing highly competitive performance.

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