pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Rehearsal-free Federated Domain-incremental Learning
Authors: Rui Sun, Haoran Duan, Jiahua Dong, Varun Ojha, Tejal Shah, Rajiv Ranjan
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Contrastive Learning, Federated Learning, Incremental Learning

We introduce a rehearsal-free federated domain incremental learning framework, RefFiL, based on a global prompt-sharing paradigm to alleviate catastrophic forgetting challenges in federated domain-incremental learning, where unseen domains are continually learned. Typical methods for mitigating forgetting, such as the use of additional datasets and the retention of private data from earlier tasks, are not viable in federated learning (FL) due to devices' limited resources. Our method, RefFiL, addresses this by learning domain-invariant knowledge and incorporating various domain-specific prompts from the domains represented by different FL participants. A key feature of RefFiL is the generation of local fine-grained prompts by our domain adaptive prompt generator, which effectively learns from local domain knowledge while maintaining distinctive boundaries on a global scale. We also introduce a domain-specific prompt contrastive learning loss that differentiates between locally generated prompts and those from other domains, enhancing RefFiL's precision and effectiveness. Compared to existing methods, RefFiL significantly alleviates catastrophic forgetting without requiring extra memory space, making it ideal for privacy-sensitive and resource-constrained devices.
Symmetric Linear Bandits with Hidden Symmetry
Authors: Nam Phuong Tran, The Anh Ta, Debmalya Mandal, Long Tran-Thanh
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Inductive Bias, Model Selection

High-dimensional linear bandits with low-dimensional structure have received considerable attention in recent studies due to their practical significance. The most common structure in the literature is sparsity. However, it may not be available in practice. Symmetry, where the reward is invariant under certain groups of transformations on the set of arms, is another important inductive bias in the high-dimensional case that covers many standard structures, including sparsity. In this work, we study high-dimensional symmetric linear bandits where the symmetry is hidden from the learner, and the correct symmetry needs to be learned in an online setting. We examine the structure of a collection of hidden symmetry and provide a method based on model selection within the collection of low-dimensional subspaces. Our algorithm achieves a regret bound of $ O(d_0^{2/3} T^{2/3} \log(d))$, where $d$ is the ambient dimension which is potentially very large, and $d_0$ is the dimension of the true low-dimensional subspace such that $d_0 \ll d$. With an extra assumption on well-separated models, we can further improve the regret to $ O(d_0\sqrt{T\log(d)} )$.
Marrying Causal Representation Learning with Dynamical Systems for Science
Authors: Dingling Yao, Caroline Muller, Francesco Locatello
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Representation Learning

Causal representation learning promises to extend causal models to hidden causal variables from raw entangled measurements. However, most progress has focused on proving identifiability results in different settings, and we are not aware of any successful real-world application. At the same time, the field of dynamical systems benefited from deep learning and scaled to countless applications but does not allow parameter identification. In this paper, we draw a clear connection between the two and their key assumptions, allowing us to apply identifiable methods developed in causal representation learning to dynamical systems. At the same time, we can leverage scalable differentiable solvers developed for differential equations to build models that are both identifiable and practical. Overall, we learn explicitly controllable models that isolate the trajectory-specific parameters for further downstream tasks such as out-of-distribution classification or treatment effect estimation. We experiment with a wind simulator with partially known factors of variation. We also apply the resulting model to real-world climate data and successfully answer downstream causal questions in line with existing literature on climate change.
FACT or Fiction: Can Truthful Mechanisms Eliminate Federated Free Riding?
Authors: Marco Bornstein, Amrit Singh Bedi, Abdirisak Mohamed, Furong Huang
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Federated Learning

Standard federated learning (FL) approaches are vulnerable to the free-rider dilemma: participating agents can contribute little to nothing yet receive a well-trained aggregated model. While prior mechanisms attempt to solve the free-rider dilemma, none have addressed the issue of truthfulness. In practice, adversarial agents can provide false information to the server in order to cheat its way out of contributing to federated training. In an effort to make free-riding-averse federated mechanisms truthful, and consequently less prone to breaking down in practice, we propose FACT. FACT is the first federated mechanism that: (1) eliminates federated free riding by using a penalty system, (2) ensures agents provide truthful information by creating a competitive environment, and (3) encourages agent participation by offering better performance than training alone. Empirically, FACT avoids free-riding when agents are untruthful, and reduces agent loss by over 4x.
Automatically Identifying Local and Global Circuits with Linear Computation Graphs
Authors: Xuyang Ge, Fukang Zhu, Wentao Shu, Junxuan Wang, Zhengfu He, Xipeng Qiu
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00

Circuit analysis of any certain model behavior is a central task in mechanistic interpretability. We introduce our circuit discovery pipeline with Sparse Autoencoders (SAEs) and a variant called Transcoders. With these two modules inserted into the model, the model's computation graph with respect to OV and MLP circuits becomes strictly linear. Our methods do not require linear approximation to compute the causal effect of each node. This fine-grained graph identifies both end-to-end and local circuits accounting for either logits or intermediate features. We can scalably apply this pipeline with a technique called Hierarchical Attribution. We analyze three kinds of circuits in GPT-2 Small: bracket, induction, and Indirect Object Identification circuits. Our results reveal new findings underlying existing discoveries.
Koopcon: A new approach towards smarter and less complex learning
Authors: Vahid Jebraeeli, Bo Jiang, Derya Cansever, Hamid Krim
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Dataset Condensation

In the era of big data, the sheer volume and complexity of datasets pose significant challenges in machine learning, particularly in image processing tasks. This paper introduces an innovative Autoencoder-based Dataset Condensation Model backed by Koopman operator theory that effectively packs large datasets into compact, information-rich representations. Inspired by the predictive coding mechanisms of the human brain, our model leverages a novel approach to encode and reconstruct data, maintaining essential features and label distributions. The condensation process utilizes an autoencoder neural network architecture, coupled with Optimal Transport theory and Wasserstein distance, to minimize the distributional discrepancies between the original and synthesized datasets. We present a two-stage implementation strategy: first, condensing the large dataset into a smaller synthesized subset; second, evaluating the synthesized data by training a classifier and comparing its performance with a classifier trained on an equivalent subset of the original data. Our experimental results demonstrate that the classifiers trained on condensed data exhibit comparable performance to those trained on the original datasets, thus affirming the efficacy of our condensation model. This work not only contributes to the reduction of computational resources but also paves the way for efficient data handling in constrained environments, marking a significant step forward in data-efficient machine learning.
Transformers Learn Temporal Difference Methods for In-Context Reinforcement Learning
Authors: Jiuqi Wang, Ethan Blaser, Hadi Daneshmand, Shangtong Zhang
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00
Tasks: In-Context Learning, In-Context Reinforcement Learning, reinforcement-learning, Reinforcement Learning

In-context learning refers to the learning ability of a model during inference time without adapting its parameters. The input (i.e., prompt) to the model (e.g., transformers) consists of both a context (i.e., instance-label pairs) and a query instance. The model is then able to output a label for the query instance according to the context during inference. A possible explanation for in-context learning is that the forward pass of (linear) transformers implements iterations of gradient descent on the instance-label pairs in the context. In this paper, we prove by construction that transformers can also implement temporal difference (TD) learning in the forward pass, a phenomenon we refer to as in-context TD. We demonstrate the emergence of in-context TD after training the transformer with a multi-task TD algorithm, accompanied by theoretical analysis. Furthermore, we prove that transformers are expressive enough to implement many other policy evaluation algorithms in the forward pass, including residual gradient, TD with eligibility trace, and average-reward TD.
Carbon Connect: An Ecosystem for Sustainable Computing
Authors: Benjamin C. Lee, David Brooks, Arthur van Benthem, Udit Gupta, Gage Hills, Vincent Liu, Benjamin Pierce, Christopher Stewart, Emma Strubell, Gu-Yeon Wei, Adam Wierman, Yuan YAO, Minlan Yu
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Management

Computing is at a moment of profound opportunity. Emerging applications -- such as capable artificial intelligence, immersive virtual realities, and pervasive sensor systems -- drive unprecedented demand for computer. Despite recent advances toward net zero carbon emissions, the computing industry's gross energy usage continues to rise at an alarming rate, outpacing the growth of new energy installations and renewable energy deployments. A shift towards sustainability is needed to spark a transformation in how computer systems are manufactured, allocated, and consumed. Carbon Connect envisions coordinated research thrusts that produce design and management strategies for sustainable, next-generation computer systems. These strategies must flatten and then reverse growth trajectories for computing power and carbon for society's most rapidly growing applications such as artificial intelligence and virtual spaces. We will require accurate models for carbon accounting in computing technology. For embodied carbon, we must re-think conventional design strategies -- over-provisioned monolithic servers, frequent hardware refresh cycles, custom silicon -- and adopt life-cycle design strategies that more effectively reduce, reuse and recycle hardware at scale. For operational carbon, we must not only embrace renewable energy but also design systems to use that energy more efficiently. Finally, new hardware design and management strategies must be cognizant of economic policy and regulatory landscape, aligning private initiatives with societal goals. Many of these broader goals will require computer scientists to develop deep, enduring collaborations with researchers in economics, law, and industrial ecology to spark change in broader practice.
On the dynamics of convolutional recurrent neural networks near their critical point
Authors: Aditi Chandra, Marcelo O. Magnasco
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00

We examine the dynamical properties of a single-layer convolutional recurrent network with a smooth sigmoidal activation function, for small values of the inputs and when the convolution kernel is unitary, so all eigenvalues lie exactly at the unit circle. Such networks have a variety of hallmark properties: the outputs depend on the inputs via compressive nonlinearities such as cubic roots, and both the timescales of relaxation and the length-scales of signal propagation depend sensitively on the inputs as power laws, both diverging as the input to 0. The basic dynamical mechanism is that inputs to the network generate ongoing activity, which in turn controls how additional inputs or signals propagate spatially or attenuate in time. We present analytical solutions for the steady states when the network is forced with a single oscillation and when a background value creates a steady state of ongoing activity, and derive the relationships shaping the value of the temporal decay and spatial propagation length as a function of this background value.
Enhancing lattice kinetic schemes for fluid dynamics with Lattice-Equivariant Neural Networks
Authors: Giulio Ortali, Alessandro Gabbana, Imre Atmodimedjo, Alessandro Corbetta
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00

We present a new class of equivariant neural networks, hereby dubbed Lattice-Equivariant Neural Networks (LENNs), designed to satisfy local symmetries of a lattice structure. Our approach develops within a recently introduced framework aimed at learning neural network-based surrogate models Lattice Boltzmann collision operators. Whenever neural networks are employed to model physical systems, respecting symmetries and equivariance properties has been shown to be key for accuracy, numerical stability, and performance. Here, hinging on ideas from group representation theory, we define trainable layers whose algebraic structure is equivariant with respect to the symmetries of the lattice cell. Our method naturally allows for efficient implementations, both in terms of memory usage and computational costs, supporting scalable training/testing for lattices in two spatial dimensions and higher, as the size of symmetry group grows. We validate and test our approach considering 2D and 3D flowing dynamics, both in laminar and turbulent regimes. We compare with group averaged-based symmetric networks and with plain, non-symmetric, networks, showing how our approach unlocks the (a-posteriori) accuracy and training stability of the former models, and the train/inference speed of the latter networks (LENNs are about one order of magnitude faster than group-averaged networks in 3D). Our work opens towards practical utilization of machine learning-augmented Lattice Boltzmann CFD in real-world simulations.
Maximum Manifold Capacity Representations in State Representation Learning
Authors: Li Meng, Morten Goodwin, Anis Yazidi, Paal Engelstad
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Representation Learning, Self-Supervised Learning

The expanding research on manifold-based self-supervised learning (SSL) builds on the manifold hypothesis, which suggests that the inherent complexity of high-dimensional data can be unraveled through lower-dimensional manifold embeddings. Capitalizing on this, DeepInfomax with an unbalanced atlas (DIM-UA) has emerged as a powerful tool and yielded impressive results for state representations in reinforcement learning. Meanwhile, Maximum Manifold Capacity Representation (MMCR) presents a new frontier for SSL by optimizing class separability via manifold compression. However, MMCR demands extensive input views, resulting in significant computational costs and protracted pre-training durations. Bridging this gap, we present an innovative integration of MMCR into existing SSL methods, incorporating a discerning regularization strategy that enhances the lower bound of mutual information. We also propose a novel state representation learning method extending DIM-UA, embedding a nuclear norm loss to enforce manifold consistency robustly. On experimentation with the Atari Annotated RAM Interface, our method improves DIM-UA significantly with the same number of target encoding dimensions. The mean F1 score averaged over categories is 78% compared to 75% of DIM-UA. There are also compelling gains when implementing SimCLR and Barlow Twins. This supports our SSL innovation as a paradigm shift, enabling more nuanced high-dimensional data representations.
Regression Trees Know Calculus
Authors: Nathan Wycoff
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Gaussian Processes, regression, Uncertainty Quantification

Regression trees have emerged as a preeminent tool for solving real-world regression problems due to their ability to deal with nonlinearities, interaction effects and sharp discontinuities. In this article, we rather study regression trees applied to well-behaved, differentiable functions, and determine the relationship between node parameters and the local gradient of the function being approximated. We find a simple estimate of the gradient which can be efficiently computed using quantities exposed by popular tree learning libraries. This allows the tools developed in the context of differentiable algorithms, like neural nets and Gaussian processes, to be deployed to tree-based models. To demonstrate this, we study measures of model sensitivity defined in terms of integrals of gradients and demonstrate how to compute them for regression trees using the proposed gradient estimates. Quantitative and qualitative numerical experiments reveal the capability of gradients estimated by regression trees to improve predictive analysis, solve tasks in uncertainty quantification, and provide interpretation of model behavior.
Identifiability of Differential-Algebraic Systems
Authors: Arthur N. Montanari, François Lamoline, Robert Bereza, Jorge Gonçalves
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Numerical Integration

Data-driven modeling of dynamical systems often faces numerous data-related challenges. A fundamental requirement is the existence of a unique set of parameters for a chosen model structure, an issue commonly referred to as identifiability. Although this problem is well studied for ordinary differential equations (ODEs), few studies have focused on the more general class of systems described by differential-algebraic equations (DAEs). Examples of DAEs include dynamical systems with algebraic equations representing conservation laws or approximating fast dynamics. This work introduces a novel identifiability test for models characterized by nonlinear DAEs. Unlike previous approaches, our test only requires prior knowledge of the system equations and does not need nonlinear transformation, index reduction, or numerical integration of the DAEs. We employed our identifiability analysis across a diverse range of DAE models, illustrating how system identifiability depends on the choices of sensors, experimental conditions, and model structures. Given the added challenges involved in identifying DAEs when compared to ODEs, we anticipate that our findings will have broad applicability and contribute significantly to the development and validation of data-driven methods for DAEs and other structure-preserving models.
Thermodynamic Natural Gradient Descent
Authors: Kaelan Donatella, Samuel Duffield, Maxwell Aifer, Denis Melanson, Gavin Crooks, Patrick J. Coles
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Language Modeling, Language Modelling

Second-order training methods have better convergence properties than gradient descent but are rarely used in practice for large-scale training due to their computational overhead. This can be viewed as a hardware limitation (imposed by digital computers). Here we show that natural gradient descent (NGD), a second-order method, can have a similar computational complexity per iteration to a first-order method, when employing appropriate hardware. We present a new hybrid digital-analog algorithm for training neural networks that is equivalent to NGD in a certain parameter regime but avoids prohibitively costly linear system solves. Our algorithm exploits the thermodynamic properties of an analog system at equilibrium, and hence requires an analog thermodynamic computer. The training occurs in a hybrid digital-analog loop, where the gradient and Fisher information matrix (or any other positive semi-definite curvature matrix) are calculated at given time intervals while the analog dynamics take place. We numerically demonstrate the superiority of this approach over state-of-the-art digital first- and second-order training methods on classification tasks and language model fine-tuning tasks.
Interpretable Multivariate Time Series Forecasting Using Neural Fourier Transform
Authors: Noam Koren, Kira Radinsky
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Multivariate Time Series Forecasting, Time Series, Time Series Forecasting

Multivariate time series forecasting is a pivotal task in several domains, including financial planning, medical diagnostics, and climate science. This paper presents the Neural Fourier Transform (NFT) algorithm, which combines multi-dimensional Fourier transforms with Temporal Convolutional Network layers to improve both the accuracy and interpretability of forecasts. The Neural Fourier Transform is empirically validated on fourteen diverse datasets, showing superior performance across multiple forecasting horizons and lookbacks, setting new benchmarks in the field. This work advances multivariate time series forecasting by providing a model that is both interpretable and highly predictive, making it a valuable tool for both practitioners and researchers. The code for this study is publicly available.
A General Graph Spectral Wavelet Convolution via Chebyshev Order Decomposition
Authors: Nian Liu, Xiaoxin He, Thomas Laurent, Francesco Di Giovanni, Michael M. Bronstein, Xavier Bresson
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00

Spectral graph convolution, an important tool of data filtering on graphs, relies on two essential decisions: selecting spectral bases for signal transformation and parameterizing the kernel for frequency analysis. While recent techniques mainly focus on standard Fourier transform and vector-valued spectral functions, they fall short in flexibility to model signal distributions over large spatial ranges, and capacity of spectral function. In this paper, we present a novel wavelet-based graph convolution network, namely WaveGC, which integrates multi-resolution spectral bases and a matrix-valued filter kernel. Theoretically, we establish that WaveGC can effectively capture and decouple short-range and long-range information, providing superior filtering flexibility, surpassing existing graph wavelet neural networks. To instantiate WaveGC, we introduce a novel technique for learning general graph wavelets by separately combining odd and even terms of Chebyshev polynomials. This approach strictly satisfies wavelet admissibility criteria. Our numerical experiments showcase the consistent improvements in both short-range and long-range tasks. This underscores the effectiveness of the proposed model in handling different scenarios. Our code is available at https://github.com/liun-online/WaveGC.
Conditioning diffusion models by explicit forward-backward bridging
Authors: Adrien Corenflos, Zheng Zhao, Simo Särkkä, Jens Sjölund, Thomas B. Schön
Date: 2024-05-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Denoising

Given an unconditional diffusion model targeting a joint model $\pi(x, y)$, using it to perform conditional simulation $\pi(x \mid y)$ is still largely an open question and is typically achieved by learning conditional drifts to the denoising SDE after the fact. In this work, we express \emph{exact} conditional simulation within the \emph{approximate} diffusion model as an inference problem on an augmented space corresponding to a partial SDE bridge. This perspective allows us to implement efficient and principled particle Gibbs and pseudo-marginal samplers marginally targeting the conditional distribution $\pi(x \mid y)$. Contrary to existing methodology, our methods do not introduce any additional approximation to the unconditional diffusion model aside from the Monte Carlo error. We showcase the benefits and drawbacks of our approach on a series of synthetic and real data examples.