#01Nov 10, 2026
cs.AI
Comparative Analysis of Agent Evaluation Frameworks: Stability, Detection, and Discovery in Enterprise Analytics Agents
Howard Zhang, Chuck Arvin, Logan Brown and 3 more
Deploying LLM-based analytics agents in enterprise settings requires evaluation frameworks that can reliably detect failures across complex, multi-tool workflows. We present a three-phase comparative study of three evaluation frameworks, each representing a distinct evaluation paradigm (trace-based LLM judging, text-only LLM judging with red-teaming, and deterministic heuristics), applied to two analytics agents in a controlled research setting using frozen execution traces. Phase 1 quantifies evaluation harness stability through repeated measurements, finding that 97% of configurations meet the stability threshold and that stability patterns are agent-independent. Phase 2 measures known risk detection on 72 ground-truth test cases, where the trace-based framework achieves the best precision-recall balance (F1=0.90) while text-only evaluation matches on recall but generates 5x more false alarms. Phase 3 evaluates unknown risk discovery, uncovering 24 novel failures with zero overlap between functional testing and security red-teaming. Our results demonstrate that (1) the information available to the evaluation harness determines evaluation quality, (2) functional and security evaluation are complementary, and (3) LLM-based evaluation harnesses surface subtle errors that human reviewers miss. We recommend a two-framework strategy: trace-based evaluation for functional assessment and adversarial red-teaming for security validation.
#02Nov 10, 2026
cs.LG
When Does the Real Wiring Win? Testing connectome structure-function claims against unmeasured physiology
Yeyuan Liu
Connectome-constrained models are often used to argue that a measured wiring diagram outperforms shuffled or rewired wiring, and hence that structure shapes function. Such comparisons can confound wiring with how the models are tuned: a connectome fixes who connects to whom, not the excitability, gains or plasticity rates the model also needs, and modellers often tune these until the real-wiring model works. We separate three estimands: physiology tuned on the real wiring and transferred to nulls (P1), each wiring tuned on its own (P2), and P2 restricted to physiology consistent with independent data (P3). The biases involved are known in machine learning (under-tuned baselines, inherited weights, winner's curse); we measure what they do to biological conclusions, using synthetic ground truth, placebo nulls and three Drosophila circuit models. Some claims survive every protocol we test: segregated reward and punishment dopamine improves learning, and head-direction topography is required for a persistent bump. Others do not. In the mushroom body, the real Kenyon-cell output wiring beats a cross-subtype identity shuffle by 0.09 under P1 and P2 but loses to it by 0.09 under P3 (95% CIs exclude zero; held-out runs confirm). The verdict is set by the share of alpha'beta' cells among active Kenyon cells, which P1 selects low; at the share implied by imaging (about 44%) the real-wiring model fails to learn, exposing a model inadequacy rather than a deficit of the fly's wiring. In flyvis, P1 penalises a mirrored connectome, which has a constructed solution within 0.07 (median) of the real error, more than a spatially shuffled one in 50 of 50 members; the ranking survives ten-fold longer retraining but depends on the checkpoint at fifty-fold. A credible structural claim needs matched optimisation, data-constrained physiology and a model that still works there.
#03Nov 10, 2026
cs.CL
Mechanistic Interpretability Needs a Logic of Inference
Zhimin Hu, Chen Jiang, Hanbo Xie and 2 more
Neural networks are increasingly studied not merely as predictive systems, but as complex systems whose internal computations are themselves objects of scientific inquiry. Recent progress in mechanistic interpretability (MI) has made it possible to identify neurons, features, circuits, population structures, and dynamical patterns associated with model behavior. As these tools improve, attention is shifting from what can be observed inside a model to how those observations support mechanistic explanations. We examine the parallel efforts of neuroscience and MI to address this question and identify recurring inferential bottlenecks when inferring mechanisms from complex neural systems. We propose five principles and organize them into a recursive logic for a more rigorous procedure of mechanistic inference. These principles provide a framework that supports scientific discovery in two senses: it helps turn local interpretability findings into cumulative knowledge of mechanisms within models, and it makes those mechanisms sufficiently precise to generate testable hypotheses about domains beyond the models. Evidence beyond MI is ultimately required to establish what model mechanisms reveal about the world.
#04Nov 10, 2026
cs.AI
Re-Search: Dissecting LLM Ideation Through a Two-Player Questioning Game
Muhan Gao, Hangxiao Zhu, Xinqi Su and 3 more
Research ideation is iterative: researchers refine their ideas step by step based on feedback. Yet existing evaluations obscure this search process, making it difficult to understand how LLMs explore the space of research ideas and what limits their progress. We introduce Re-Search, which adapts the format of Twenty Questions to research ideation: given only the research problem of a published paper, a model must rediscover the paper's core idea by asking yes-or-no questions. Built from 200 ICML 2026 papers, Re-Search tracks how a model's idea evolves as it asks questions and receives binary oracle feedback, isolating ideation from execution. Across six recent LLMs, nearly all progress happens within the first 30 of 100 questions, which largely decide how the game ends; after that, most models plateau. Through controlled interventions on the candidate questions and the hypothesis space, we find that the bottleneck is generation, not judgment: models recognize a good idea or a good question when one is offered, but often cannot produce it on their own. We further analyze the ideation traces and find that models fail by either over-exploiting one direction or over-exploring too many. These findings point to concrete design principles for autoresearch systems: since models can judge candidates they cannot produce, enriching the search with externally sourced ideas and questions may be more effective than improving any single model's generation ability.
#05Nov 10, 2026
math.AP
Bayesian inverse problems and epidemic-threshold uncertainty for a heterogeneous SIS reaction-diffusion model
Duc-Lam Duong
We study Bayesian inference of persistence from early observations of a heterogeneous susceptible--infected--susceptible (SIS) reaction--diffusion model with standard incidence. We show that the leading prevalence dynamics depend on the unknown coefficients only through the difference between the transmission and recovery rates and the infected diffusivity. The same pair determines the principal eigenvalue whose sign governs persistence, so early prevalence can inform the threshold even when the individual rates remain uncertain. We prove global weak well-posedness and quantitative parameter stability for the SIS system and use the resulting observation-map estimates to establish Bayesian well-posedness. For an initial infection of size $\varepsilon$, we derive a uniform second-order expansion that describes how the separate rates enter prevalence. Incidence depends explicitly on transmission at leading order. When the noise standard deviation is proportional to $\varepsilon$, we prove $O(\varepsilon)$ convergence in Hellinger distance of the nonlinear posteriors to their low-prevalence limits for both prevalence alone and joint prevalence and incidence data. We bound the principal eigenvalue using the growth rate of the infected $L^2$ norm between two times. This rate gives a lower bound for the full nonlinear system, and the upper bound separates spatial transients from nonlinear saturation. Uniform spectral estimates and bounds on infection size and measurement error give sufficient conditions for persistence and extinction. We also bound the error in posterior persistence probabilities under forward and eigenvalue approximation, accounting for posterior mass near the threshold. Numerical examples illustrate threshold inference and the predicted \(O(\varepsilon)\) convergence of the nonlinear posteriors to their low-prevalence limits in Hellinger distance.