Every paper checked — nothing hidden

All papers

Every paper checked in the week of 12–18 Oct 2026 · Small and efficient models — nothing is hidden. Brief papers first.

PaperTopicRelevanceFeedback
More Methods, Better Agents? A Reality Check on Self-Distillation in Agentic Reinforcement Learning
The paper benchmarks ten self-distillation methods in agentic reinforcement learning across varied model sizes, tasks, and computational costs.
Ranked #1Surprising resultPreprint8/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 15:06
On-topic
Focuses on self-distillation methods and training cost efficiency for agent models.
TurnCost: Turns, Not Observations: Cache-Aware Loop Engineering for Coding Agents
Analyzes coding-agent trajectories to model execution costs under prompt caching, showing turn count matters far more than observation token length.
In brief · #2Surprising resultPeer-reviewed8/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Evaluates prefix caching, observation compression, and model delegation costs for efficient serving.
What You Sign Is Not What You Run: The Verifiability Gap in Quantized LLM Supply Chains
This paper examines the verifiability gap in quantized model supply chains, showing that common GGUF artifacts lack necessary build environment disclosures.
In brief · #3Surprising resultPreprint8/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 15:06
On-topic
Examines reproducibility and verifiability gaps in quantized GGUF LLM deployment pipelines.
Facts Don't Speak Louder than Words: The Behavioral Essence of Long-CoT Distillation
The paper studies long chain-of-thought distillation and argues improvements stem from structured reasoning patterns rather than factual correctness.
In brief · #4Surprising resultPreprint8/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Investigates the mechanics of reasoning distillation to make reasoning models smaller and more efficient.
When the KV Cache Is Slower Than the GPU: Scaling Remote KV Tiers for Context-Parallel Prefill
The paper analyzes performance bottlenecks when using remote key-value caches during context-parallel prefill in large language model serving.
Ranked #5Surprising resultPreprint8/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 17 Oct, 06:18
On-topic
Investigates remote KV cache tiering and context parallelism to optimize long-context LLM inference serving.
Imprinting: Knowledge Distillation Can Shift Student Behavior
Demonstrates that knowledge distillation transfers safety dispositions and behavioral tendencies from teacher models to student models on unrelated tasks.
Ranked #6Surprising resultPreprint8/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Studies how knowledge distillation transfers behavioral tendencies and capabilities from teachers to students.
Tabular Foundation Models Are Effectively Shallow
Analyzes tabular foundation models and shows most transformer layers can be replaced with affine translators without sacrificing performance.
Ranked #7Surprising resultPreprint8/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 12 Oct, 16:28
On-topic
Shows tabular foundation models can replace up to 96% of blocks, dramatically improving efficiency.
Thinking Inertia: LLMs Keep Thinking When Told Not To
The paper defines evaluation metrics to show that language models continue generating reasoning traces even when instructed not to think.
Ranked #8Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 12 Oct, 16:28
On-topic
Investigates disabling internal thinking tokens to control inference compute and costs.
UltraBERT: Beyond the Limit of BERT Pre-Training
This paper analyzes pretraining factors such as masking ratios and token budgets to optimize bidirectional transformer encoders.
Ranked #9Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Explores distillation and pruning techniques to optimize encoder efficiency across classification and retrieval.
Multi-Stream Attention Residuals
The paper extends attention residuals across model depth by introducing multi-stream depth attention with causal convolutions.
Ranked #10Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 12 Oct, 16:28
On-topic
Improves multi-stream depth attention with minimal additional overhead and without persistent multi-stream storage.
KV4-RL: Unlocking Faster Asynchronous Rollouts for RLVR with INT4 KV Cache Quantization
The paper introduces INT4 KV cache quantization with selective INT8 protection to accelerate asynchronous rollouts in reinforcement learning.
Ranked #11Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Introduces INT4 KV cache quantization to accelerate rollouts and reduce memory usage during inference.
EdgeWise: Bringing Long-Horizon Agents to the Edge via Selective Cloud Delegation
The paper proposes an edge-cloud collaboration framework that selectively delegates complex agent steps from local models to cloud models.
Ranked #12New way to see a problemPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Enables edge deployment of small language models by selectively offloading critical steps to reduce cost.
Intern-Decision: Efficient Multimodal Decision Making with Autoregressive Masked Language Modeling
Develops small multimodal models that output structured choices using masked language modeling to reduce inference latency in agent tasks.
Ranked #13New way to see a problemPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 17 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Develops small 0.8B-4B models optimized for low-latency decision-making inference.
Elephant in the Fridge: Constant-Memory Frame Packing for Long Video Understanding
Proposes a training-free frame packing method enabling vision-language models to process long videos with constant memory consumption.
Ranked #14Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:18
On-topic
Enables constant-memory efficient inference for long video vision-language models without fine-tuning.
Trajectory-Level Speculation with Semantic Verification for Tool-Using Agents
Introduces a framework where a small model drafts tool-use trajectories and a larger model verifies them in single prefill passes.
Ranked #15New way to see a problemPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 17 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Accelerates agent inference by delegating drafting to smaller models verified via parallel prefill.
Rethinking Projector Training in Multimodal LLMs
The paper examines projector training in multimodal models and proposes a training-free initialization method using summary statistics instead of paired image-caption data.
Ranked #16Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Enables training-free projector initialization without gradient optimization or paired data, saving compute.
History Replays Itself: Unleashing Long-Context Capability in Linear Attention
The paper proposes a training-free episodic memory mechanism that extends linear attention language models to long-context tasks.
Ranked #17New way to see a problemPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Enables efficient long-context modeling in linear attention while dramatically reducing memory footprint.
Virtual Head Attention
Virtual Head Attention uses two linear operations to compress key-value cache overhead without increasing training compute or sacrificing output quality.
Ranked #18New way to see a problemPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Designs an efficient attention mechanism reducing KV cache overhead and compute during inference.
Diff Diffusion: Predicting Edit Paths with Diffusion Models for Efficient Code Editing
Proposes Diff Diffusion, a diffusion-based model that predicts localized code edit sequences rather than regenerating entire source files.
Ranked #19New way to see a problemPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Introduces efficient parallel decoding and edit path prediction to reduce code inference latency.
Your Transformer Is Secretly Elastic
Presents a retraining-free method to adapt transformer sizes dynamically across diverse computational budgets using joint soft pruning of components.
Ranked #20Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 15:06
On-topic
Presents a pruning method to adapt pre-trained transformers smoothly across computational budgets.
CV-OPD: Contrastive Vision On-policy Distillation
Introduces Contrastive Vision On-policy Distillation to prevent vision-language models from relying on answer shortcuts rather than visual evidence.
Ranked #21Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 12 Oct, 16:28
On-topic
Proposes an on-policy distillation method to compress and transfer capabilities to student vision-language models.
DuoRate: Two-Rate Per-Expert Precision Allocation for Mixture-of-Experts Serving
Allocates precision across MoE experts by separately handling resident storage footprint and active batch decode traffic via dynamic optimization.
Ranked #22New way to see a problemPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 12 Oct, 16:29
On-topic
Proposes a two-rate per-expert precision allocation method to reduce MoE serving footprint and decode traffic.
CopRoute: Dependence-Aware Conformal Routing for Language Models
Proposes a conformal routing method that accounts for model failure dependencies to optimize multi-model query coverage under risk budgets.
Ranked #23New way to see a problemPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 12 Oct, 16:29
On-topic
Designs a risk-controlled routing policy to optimize inference calls and model selection efficiency.
Echo: Error-Compensated 4-Bit Tensor-Parallel Communication for LLM Training and Inference
The authors develop an error-compensated 4-bit all-reduce algorithm to reduce communication overhead during distributed model training and inference.
Ranked #24New way to see a problemPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Introduces 4-bit error-compensated communication to make distributed LLM inference faster.
Unconstrained CTI-REALM with Open-Weights
This paper evaluates open-weight language models against closed frontier models on a cybersecurity detection benchmark using an interactive telemetry environment.
Ranked #25Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Compares performance and inference costs of running open-weight versus closed frontier models.
Scaling Inference-Time Compute with Teams of Coding Agents
The paper studies compute allocation across multi-agent coding teams to identify Pareto-optimal trade-offs between cost and performance.
Ranked #26Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Optimizes inference compute efficiency and cost reduction across heterogeneous agent teams.
Think Before You Speak: Enabling Training-Free Latent Communication Between Language Models
This paper presents CacheFuse, a training-free technique enabling heterogeneous language models to communicate directly by sharing key-value cache states.
Ranked #27Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:18
On-topic
Presents a training-free KV-cache interpolation method to bypass text communication latency.
More Reasoning Is Not Always Better: Executing Clinical Guidelines with LLMs and Rules
MedDEx combines language models for patient data extraction with deterministic rule engines to execute clinical treatment guidelines accurately and efficiently.
Ranked #28Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:18
On-topic
Reduces inference costs and computational overhead by replacing complex reasoning with deterministic rules.
Defence against the dark arts of distillation: Unsupervised discovery of subliminal learning
Introduces an unsupervised method to identify and remove subliminally transferred traits from model parameter updates during knowledge distillation.
Ranked #29Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 12 Oct, 16:28
On-topic
Addresses model distillation mechanics and trait inheritance when transferring capabilities between models.
Unsupervised Multimodal Reward Modeling
Trains an unsupervised vision-language reward model using intermediate layer representations and caption perturbations without human preference labels.
Ranked #30Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 12 Oct, 16:28
On-topic
Trains a lightweight linear head reward model at a fraction of fine-tuning compute.
RouterInterp: Understanding Superposed Specialisation in Mixture of Experts Routing
Proposes an interpretability framework using sparse autoencoders to explain mixture of experts routing based on superposed fine-grained features.
Ranked #31Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 12 Oct, 16:28
On-topic
Directly investigates the routing mechanisms that make sparse Mixture of Experts models efficient.
Internalizer: Portable Context-to-Parameter Mapping for Very Large Language Models
Presents a hypernetwork that maps document contexts directly into low-rank adapter weights for large language models.
Ranked #32Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 12 Oct, 16:28
On-topic
Enables efficient parameter generation and serving without needing massive context windows.
Oído: Open-Vocabulary Speech Recognition on a $5 Microcontroller without a Neural Accelerator
Implements open-vocabulary speech recognition on a low-cost ESP32-S3 microcontroller without dedicated neural accelerators.
Ranked #33Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 12 Oct, 16:28
On-topic
Presents an efficient quantized speech recognition engine designed for resource-constrained microcontrollers.
Taking Tokenization off the Host for Agentic LLM Serving
Develops a GPU-accelerated tokenizer using CUDA graphs to reduce time-to-first-token in agentic language model serving.
Ranked #34Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 12 Oct, 16:28
On-topic
Focuses on GPU-accelerated tokenization to optimize serving efficiency and time-to-first-token.
Which Skill to Distill? SGUID: Selecting a Compact Skill Bank for Model-Skill Co-Evolution
Proposes a method to select a compact subset of procedural skills that provide effective training signals during model distillation.
Ranked #35Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 12 Oct, 16:28
On-topic
Develops a selective distillation method to improve student model efficiency from a compact skill bank.
KV-Repurpose: A Testbed for Evaluating Non-Prefix KV-Cache Reuse
Develops an open-source testbed to evaluate segment-wise key-value cache reuse beyond exact prompt prefixes during language model serving.
Ranked #36Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 12 Oct, 16:28
On-topic
Optimizes serving efficiency and TTFT by enabling segment-wise KV-cache reuse.
Rehearse Everything, Remember Nothing: Attic-KV Rehearses What Will Be Read
The paper shows that whole-context KV cache rehearsal harms compression under tight budgets, proposing targeted rehearsal to preserve answer-relevant entries.
Ranked #37Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 12 Oct, 16:28
On-topic
Compacts long-context KV caches under tight budgets for efficient inference.
SAFE-KV: Causal Suffix Repair for Behavior-Preserving Non-Prefix KV Cache Reuse in RAG
The paper presents a repair method that re-encodes causal suffixes to enable safe non-prefix KV-cache reuse in retrieval-augmented generation.
Ranked #38Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:18
On-topic
Proposes an efficient KV cache reuse method to optimize inference serving.
Do Personalized LLMs Need the Whole Conversation? Matching the Full History with Only 5% of Its Text via Relevance-Filtered Context
This paper demonstrates that sentence-level relevance retrieval can match full conversation history accuracy in personalized language models using only five percent context.
Ranked #39Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:18
On-topic
Cuts LLM inference input 20-fold using lightweight sentence retrieval over full histories.
To Cache or Not to Cache: Understanding and Mitigating Safety Incompatibility in Cross-Model KV Cache Reuse
The paper studies safety behavioral deviations caused by cross-model key-value cache reuse and proposes an alignment technique to mitigate them.
Ranked #40Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:18
On-topic
Studies efficient inference via cross-model KV cache sharing and mitigates resulting safety alignment issues.
DT-LoRA: Reaching Beyond the Tangent Space of Low-Rank Adaptation
Introduces a low-rank adaptation method that splits rank budgets into stable and dynamic branches to capture residual gradients outside the tangent space.
Ranked #41Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:18
On-topic
Presents a low-rank adaptation method that captures residual gradients without adding parameter or inference overhead.
Truncation Samplers Are Nested: Comparing Decoding Rules Is a Measurement Problem
The paper presents a theoretical framework using nesting properties to calculate distance bounds and compare language model truncation sampling algorithms efficiently.
Ranked #42Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:18
On-topic
Provides formal distance certificates to compare efficient truncation decoding algorithms.
Mixed Precision Scaling Laws for Quantized Pretraining
The paper proposes mixed precision scaling laws to model the trade-offs of low-precision quantization during model pretraining.
Ranked #43Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:18
On-topic
Develops scaling laws and optimal recipes for low-precision quantized pretraining and training efficiency.
Lightweight Scheduling Policies for Continuously Batched LLM Serving Across GPU Architectures
This paper evaluates lightweight scheduling policies for continuous batching in large language model serving across different GPU architectures.
Ranked #44Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:18
On-topic
Investigates lightweight scheduling policies to improve continuous batching and serving throughput.
Accelerating Cross-Model LLM Inference via Attention Map Reuse
This paper presents a system that speeds up multi-model language model serving by translating and reusing attention maps across models.
Ranked #45Surprising resultPeer-reviewed7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:18
On-topic
Accelerates cross-model LLM serving and reduces prefilling latency via attention reuse.
When Dynamic Scaling Fails: A Scale-State Feedback Governs Recurrent-State Quantization in Linear-Attention and SSM LLMs
This paper investigates error compounding and scale-state feedback mechanisms during recurrent-state quantization in linear-attention and state-space language models.
Ranked #46Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:18
On-topic
Analyzes recurrent-state quantization in linear-attention and SSM LLMs to cut decode cost.
Progress-Aware Distillation for Mitigating Stagnation in Small Language Model Agents
The paper introduces a progress-aware distillation method to prevent small language model agents from stalling in repetitive loops during long tasks.
Ranked #47New way to see a problemPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 15:06
On-topic
Proposes a distillation framework to make small language models capable and efficient as agents.
Learning When to Think: Utility-Guided Adaptive Reasoning for Efficient Text Retrieval
Proposes an adaptive reasoning framework that supervises intermediate retrieval states and stops reasoning steps dynamically to cut latency.
Ranked #48Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 17 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Reduces retrieval latency and token compute via utility-guided adaptive reasoning.
Failure Recovery via Belief Updates and World Modeling for Long-Horizon Agents
This paper introduces a framework combining persistent belief states with implicit world modeling to help long-horizon language agents recover from failures.
Ranked #49New way to see a problemPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:18
On-topic
Distills a large world model agent into an efficient 9B student model reducing inference cost.
ATTUNE: Agentic Throughput Tuning for LLM Training
The paper presents an automated coding agent that tunes large model training configurations for throughput under user-defined compute budgets.
Ranked #50New way to see a problemPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:18
On-topic
Optimizes GPU resource utilization and throughput efficiency for large language model training.
Does self-distillation improve reasoning?
The paper evaluates whether self-distillation using privileged information improves reasoning capabilities or reflects overfitting to training tasks.
Ranked #51Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Studies self-distillation mechanisms across smaller models like Qwen 1.7B-14B.
Correcting or Continuing? What On-Policy Distillation Learns from Student Errors
The study shows that training on-policy distillation exclusively on student errors degrades accuracy rather than improving it.
Ranked #52Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Investigates on-policy knowledge distillation behavior when training student language models.
Revisiting the 16x Pretraining Compute Gap between Diffusion and Autoregressive Language Models
The paper re-evaluates the pretraining compute scaling laws between diffusion and autoregressive language models using modern diffusion training designs.
Ranked #53Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Examines compute efficiency and scaling laws for pretraining diffusion language models.
When Does Compensating Inherited Quantization Error Help? Mean-Square Guarantees for Layer-Wise Quantization and Their Limits
The paper provides theoretical mean-square error guarantees and bounds for layer-wise quantization error compensation across linear and non-linear networks.
Ranked #54Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Provides theoretical mean-square error guarantees and bounds for layer-wise post-training quantization.
Efficient Multi-Agent Reasoning via Confidence-Guided Adaptive Debate
Introduces an adaptive multi-agent debate framework that uses a leader-supporter structure to trigger debate only when simple aggregation is insufficient.
Ranked #55Surprising resultPeer-reviewed7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Optimizes multi-agent reasoning to minimize token costs and improve serving efficiency.
Avoiding What Your Teacher Already Knows: Entity Familiarity for Deep-Search Distillation
Measures teacher entity familiarity to filter out uninformative search trajectories when distilling deep-search capabilities into smaller agents.
Ranked #56New way to see a problemPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Investigates distilling high-quality trajectories from larger teachers to student models.
CacheLink: Functional KV Transport for Zero-Prefill Cross-Model Context Handoff
This paper introduces a method to translate key-value caches between different language models, enabling context handoffs without reprocessing input tokens.
Ranked #57Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Eliminates prefill overhead for cross-model serving, improving inference efficiency.
E8 Lattice Key Quantization for Low-Bit KV-Cache Compression
This paper presents a lattice vector quantization method that compresses attention key-value caches to two bits while preserving model quality.
Ranked #58Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Proposes vector quantization of KV caches for efficient, low-memory LLM serving.
Exploring Jailbreak Vulnerability Across Depth-Based Dynamic Inference in Large Language Models
Studies how depth-based early-exit inference affects language model safety, finding shallow exits resist jailbreaks better than deep exits.
Ranked #59Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:17
On-topic
Investigates depth-based dynamic early-exit inference and its impact on model behavior.
The Effect of Layer Ordering in Hybrid Architectures
This paper analyzes how layer ordering and selection affect performance across tasks in hybrid attention model architectures.
Ranked #60Surprising resultPreprint7/10 suggested
Small and efficient models
via arxiv · 15 Oct, 06:18
On-topic
Examines optimal layer ordering in hybrid architectures under strict resource and memory budgets.
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