arXiv 2611.14488 · cs.RO · Nov 10
Is Your Robot's Memory Just a Clock? Temporal Shortcuts in Memory-Augmented VLA Policies
Chubin Zhang and Bo An
Memory-augmented robot policies are supposed to remember what happened in an episode. Many of them just sample frames on a clock and stamp each one with its time step. This paper shows that a brief pause or a fidget — something that changes nothing about the task — is enough to throw those memories off, because the policy has learned to treat time passing as if it were work.
Why it matters
If a robot’s “memory” is mostly a clock, waiting looks like doing. That’s a dangerous shortcut for any policy you would trust around people or parts.
arXiv 2611.14201 · cs.PL · Nov 10
CFGKAT: A Complete Calculus for Non-Local Control Flow
Spencer Van Koevering et al.
Guarded Kleene algebra with tests can reason about programs with if and while, and it has a fast decision procedure. Real languages also have break and goto. CFGKAT adds that non-local control flow, and this paper gives it a sound, complete axiomatization of program equivalence — something the extra jumps made surprisingly hard.
Why it matters
Compilers and verifiers need equality proofs that survive goto and break, not just structured loops. A complete calculus is how you stop treating those jumps as unreasoned special cases.
arXiv 2611.14426 · math.OC · cs.AI · Nov 10
Two Communities, One Problem: Branch-and-Bound vs. A* for Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling
Izack Cohen et al.
Branch-and-bound comes from operations research; A* comes from AI. They share a search skeleton but explore the space differently, and that can change how long a solve takes. This paper lines them up on the resource-constrained project scheduling problem, spells out how their ingredients correspond, and measures where each one pulls ahead.
Why it matters
Scheduling, compilers, and planners keep rediscovering the same search. A head-to-head on one canonical problem is how those communities stop talking past each other.
