arXiv Computation and Language

Are These Modules Worth Their Cost? A Paradigm-Level Accuracy-Cost Analysis of In-context Learning Text-to-SQL

The paper evaluates 17 paradigm-level configurations of in‑context learning (ICL) text‑to‑SQL pipelines across five common modules, measuring each module’s marginal accuracy contribution and cost for four different backbone models. It finds that execution‑feedback refinement consistently improves accuracy at low cost, while other modules only help under specific backbone conditions. The study also shows that investing in a more elaborate pipeline for a mid‑tier backbone can be more cost‑effective than upgrading to a high‑capability model with a lean pipeline, providing a tiered, cost‑aware guideline that generalizes to additional backbones.

arXiv AI
Sep 23

LIMIT: Less Is More for Instruction Tuning in Text-to-SQL

LIMIT (Less Is More for Instruction Tuning in Text-to-SQL) challenges the belief that large instruction corpora are necessary for effective Text-to-SQL models. The framework uses a four‑stage data‑centric process—difficulty‑aware filtering, chain‑of‑thought synthesis, LLM‑as‑judge quality scoring, and genetic algorithm optimization—to select a compact set of examples that still achieve full schema coverage. On the BIRD and Spider benchmarks, LIMIT’s 796 and 863 samples enable Qwen3‑8B to reach 69.1% and 88.9% execution accuracy, outperforming methods trained on twenty times more data and setting a new state‑of‑the‑art for open‑source approaches.

By Haoyuan Ma, Hengwei Liu, Linjuan Wu, Yongliang Shen, Weiming Lu
arXiv AI
Jul 24

EvoSQL: Memory-Augmented Critic-Generator Co-Evolution for Text-to-SQL

arXiv:2607. 20489v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Text-to-SQL has advanced rapidly with large language models, but complex database queries still require reasoning beyond one-shot generation, including multi-step decomposition, execution-based diagnosis, and targeted correction.

By Jiawei Zhou, Jianwei Wang, Chenyu Zhou, Chaojian Shi, Ming Dong, Kai Wang
arXiv AI
Sep 15

Beyond Quacking: Deep Integration of Language Models and RAG into DuckDB

The paper introduces FlockMTL, an extension for database management systems that deeply integrates large language models and retrieval‑augmented generation into DuckDB. It provides model‑driven scalar and aggregate functions, cost‑based optimizations like batching and caching, and new SQL DDL abstractions (PROMPT and MODEL) to treat LLMs as first‑class schema objects. These features aim to simplify the development of knowledge‑intensive analytical applications by reducing the effort required to orchestrate heterogeneous data systems and manage LLM context.

By Anas Dorbani, Sunny Yasser, Jimmy Lin, Amine Mhedhbi
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 24

What Do Tabular Foundation Models Compute In Context? In-Situ Representation Refinement through Attention-Gated Updates

The paper introduces RefineICL, an attention‑gated, feed‑forward‑network‑free framework that refines representations in situ for tabular foundation models. By using support labels to guide episode‑specific updates, the method transfers learned corrections to unlabeled queries without altering model parameters, achieving state‑of‑the‑art performance on AMLB29 and TabArena benchmarks. Experiments and internal interventions demonstrate that intermediate support updates are essential for constructing task‑specific predictors in context.

By Tian Zhou, Beverly Jin, Linxiao Yang, Xue Wang, Wenwei Wang, Bingqing Peng, Mengni Ye, Jinjie Gu, Liang Sun
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 17

Models Can Model, But Can't Bind: Structured Grounding in Text-to-Optimization

arXiv:2605. 21751v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Text-to-optimization requires two separable capabilities: modeling -- choosing the right optimization structure -- and binding -- grounding every coefficient, index, and parameter in the concrete problem data.

By Zhiqi Gao, Albert Ge, Alexander Berenbeim, Nathaniel D. Bastian, Frederic Sala