Papers by Wagner Meira Jr.
Disentangling Text and Math in Word Problems: Evidence for the Bidimensional Structure of Large Language Models’ Reasoning (2025.findings-acl)
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Pedro Calais, Gabriel Franco, Zilu Tang, Themistoklis Nikas, Wagner Meira Jr., Evimaria Terzi, Mark Crovella
| Challenge: | Existing studies show that LLMs struggle with text interpretation and equation solving, despite distinct proficiencies in textual and mathematical components. |
| Approach: | They disentangle textual interpretation and mathematical solving steps in word problems drawn from Brazil's largest college entrance exam and popular grade school-level benchmark GSM8K. |
| Outcome: | The proposed model outperforms LLMs in Brazil's largest college entrance exam and popular grade school-level benchmark. |
Monotonic Scaffolding as a Diagnostic Lens for Legal Reasoning in LLMs (2026.acl-long)
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| Challenge: | Modern evaluation of Legal QA systems is shifting from terminal accuracy toward process-aware analyses of model reasoning. |
| Approach: | They propose a diagnostic framework grounded in monotonic scaffolding where language models receive gold-standard, case-relevant information across stages aligned with the canonical legal framework FIRAC. |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework evaluates 3,123 Brazilian Bar Exam questions . it shows that terminal accuracy overestimates legal reasoning competence . |