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Xi Zhu

Xi Zhu contributes to research discovery and scholarly infrastructure.

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Published work

4 published item(s)

preprint2026arXiv

BrainSegNet: A Novel Framework for Whole-Brain MRI Parcellation Enhanced by Large Models

Whole-brain parcellation from MRI is a critical yet challenging task due to the complexity of subdividing the brain into numerous small, irregular shaped regions. Traditionally, template-registration methods were used, but recent advances have shifted to deep learning for faster workflows. While large models like the Segment Anything Model (SAM) offer transferable feature representations, they are not tailored for the high precision required in brain parcellation. To address this, we propose BrainSegNet, a novel framework that adapts SAM for accurate whole-brain parcellation into 95 regions. We enhance SAM by integrating U-Net skip connections and specialized modules into its encoder and decoder, enabling fine-grained anatomical precision. Key components include a hybrid encoder combining U-Net skip connections with SAM's transformer blocks, a multi-scale attention decoder with pyramid pooling for varying-sized structures, and a boundary refinement module to sharpen edges. Experimental results on the Human Connectome Project (HCP) dataset demonstrate that BrainSegNet outperforms several state-of-the-art methods, achieving higher accuracy and robustness in complex, multi-label parcellation.

preprint2026arXiv

Learn2Reg 2024: New Benchmark Datasets Driving Progress on New Challenges

Medical image registration is critical for clinical applications, and fair benchmarking of different methods is essential for monitoring ongoing progress in the field. To date, the Learn2Reg 2020-2023 challenges have released several complementary datasets and established metrics for evaluations. Building on this foundation, the 2024 edition expands the challenge's scope to cover a wider range of registration scenarios, particularly in terms of modality diversity and task complexity, by introducing three new tasks, including large-scale multi-modal registration and unsupervised inter-subject brain registration, as well as the first microscopy-focused benchmark within Learn2Reg. The new datasets also inspired new method developments, including invertibility constraints, pyramid features, keypoints alignment and instance optimisation. Visit Learn2Reg at https://learn2reg.grand-challenge.org.

preprint2026arXiv

Trust or Abstain? A Self-Aware RAG Approach

Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) improves large language models (LLMs) by incorporating external evidence, but it also introduces knowledge conflicts when retrieved contextual knowledge (CK) and parametric knowledge (PK) disagree or are both unreliable. Existing approaches mainly coordinate which source to use, without explicitly asking whether each answer path is correct. We argue that faithful RAG requires LLM self-awareness, namely the ability to recognize the limits of its own knowledge and reasoning. To ground this problem, we construct a model-specific, ground-truth-aligned knowledge-conflict benchmark by evaluating LLM backbones on PK-only and CK-conditioned answer paths over approximately 69K query-context instances per backbone, drawn from five conflict-QA datasets. We then introduce SABER, a Self-Aware Belief Estimator for RAG that requires no LLM fine-tuning. SABER combines a self-prior with PK-side and CK-side conditional reasoning representations from multi-trace inference, then estimates reliability beliefs with two lightweight predictors to drive a 4-cell decision over trust PK, trust CK, trust either, or abstain. Across four LLM backbones, SABER improves end-to-end accuracy and conflict-specific faithfulness over ten inference-time and fine-tuning baselines, with the largest gains on conflict-heavy datasets. Under abstention, SABER's risk-coverage curve Pareto-dominates every prompt-based abstainer, providing a tunable balance between coverage and answer risk. Our code is available at https://github.com/xizhu1022/SABER.

preprint2021arXiv

Effect of Varying the TD-lc-DFTB Range-Separation Parameter on Charge and Energy Transfer in a Model Pentacene/Buckminsterfullerene Heterojunction

Density-functional tight binding (DFTB) has become a popular form of approximate density-functional theory (DFT) based upon a minimal valence basis set and neglect of all but two center integrals. We report the results of our tests of a recent long-range correction (lc) for time-dependent (TD) lc-DFTB by carrying out TD-lc-DFTB fewest switches surface hopping (FSSH) calculations of energy and charge transfer times using the relatively new DFTBaby program. An advantage of this method is the ability to run enough trajectories to get meaningful ensemble averages. Our interest in the present work is less in determining exact energy and charge transfer rates than in understanding how the results of these calculations vary with the value of the range-separation parameter (Rlc = 1/μ) for a model organic solar cell heterojunction consisting of a van der Waals complex P/F made up of single pentacene (P) molecule together with a single buckminsterfullerene (F) molecule. The default value of Rlc = 3.03 a0 is found to be much too small as neither energy nor charge transfer is observed until Rlc ~ 10 a0. Tests at a single geometry show that best agreement with high-quality ab-initio spectra is obtained in the limit of no lc (i.e., very large Rlc.) A plot of energy and charge transfer rates as a function of Rlc is provided which suggests that a value of Rlc ~ 15 a0 yields the typical literature charge transfer time of about 100 fs. However, energy and charge transfer times become as high as ~ 300 fs for Rlc ~ 25 a0. A closer examination of the charge transfer process P*/F to P+/F- shows that the initial electron transfer is accompanied by a partial delocalization of the P hole onto F which then relocalizes back onto P, consistent with a polaron-like picture in which the nuclei relax to stabilize the resultant redistribution of charges.