The network reconstruction problem is one of the challenging problems in network science. This work deals with reconstructing networks in which the flows are conserved around the nodes. These networks are referred to as conserved networks. We propose a novel concept of conservation graph for describing conserved networks. The properties of conservation graph are investigated. We develop a methodology to reconstruct conserved networks from flows by combining these graph properties with learning techniques, with polynomial time complexity. We show that exact network reconstruction is possible for radial networks. Further, we extend the methodology for reconstructing networks from noisy data. We demonstrate the proposed methods on different types of radial networks.

High sensitivity of neural architecture search (NAS) methods against their input such as step-size (i.e., learning rate) and search space prevents practitioners from applying them out-of-the-box to their own problems, albeit its purpose is to automate a part of tuning process. Aiming at a fast, robust, and widely-applicable NAS, we develop a generic optimization framework for NAS. We turn a coupled optimization of connection weights and neural architecture into a differentiable optimization by means of stochastic relaxation. It accepts arbitrary search space (widely-applicable) and enables to employ a gradient-based simultaneous optimization of weights and architecture (fast). We propose a stochastic natural gradient method with an adaptive step-size mechanism built upon our theoretical investigation (robust). Despite its simplicity and no problem-dependent parameter tuning, our method exhibited near state-of-the-art performances with low computational budgets both on image classification and inpainting tasks.

In this paper we use a time-evolving graph which consists of a sequence of graph snapshots over time to model many real-world networks. We study the path classification problem in a time-evolving graph, which has many applications in real-world scenarios, for example, predicting path failure in a telecommunication network and predicting path congestion in a traffic network in the near future. In order to capture the temporal dependency and graph structure dynamics, we design a novel deep neural network named Long Short-Term Memory R-GCN (LRGCN). LRGCN considers temporal dependency between time-adjacent graph snapshots as a special relation with memory, and uses relational GCN to jointly process both intra-time and inter-time relations. We also propose a new path representation method named self-attentive path embedding (SAPE), to embed paths of arbitrary length into fixed-length vectors. Through experiments on a real-world telecommunication network and a traffic network in California, we demonstrate the superiority of LRGCN to other competing methods in path failure prediction, and prove the effectiveness of SAPE on path representation.

There are different problems for resolution of complex LC-MS or GC-MS data, such as the existence of embedded chromatographic peaks, continuum background and overlapping in mass channels for different components. These problems cause rotational ambiguity in recovered profiles calculated using multivariate curve resolution (MCR) methods. Since mass spectra are sparse in nature, sparsity has been proposed recently as a constraint in MCR methods for analyzing LC-MS data. There are different ways for implementation of the sparsity constraint, and majority of methods rely on imposing a penalty based on the L0-, L1- and L2-norms of recovered mass spectra. Ridge regression and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso) can be used for implementation of L2- and L1-norm penalties in MCR, respectively. The main question is which Lx-norm penalty is more worthwhile for implementation of the sparsity constraint in MCR methods. In order to address this question, two and three component LC-MS data were simulated and used for the case study in this work. The areas of feasible solutions (AFS) were calculated using the grid search strategy. Calculating Lx-norms values in AFS for x between zero and two revealed that the gradient of optimization surface increased from x values equal to two to x values near zero. However, for x equal to zero, the optimization surface was similar to a plateau, which increased the risk of sticking in local minima. Generally, results in this work, recommend the use of L1-norm penalty methods like Lasso for implementation of sparsity constraint in MCR-ALS algorithm for finding more sparse solutions and reducing the extent of rotational ambiguity.

Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) is an ill-posed inverse problem since expert demonstrations may infer many solutions of reward functions which is hard to recover by local search methods such as a gradient method. In this paper, we generalize the original IRL problem to recover a probability distribution for reward functions. We call such a generalized problem stochastic inverse reinforcement learning (SIRL) which is first formulated as an expectation optimization problem. We adopt the Monte Carlo expectation-maximization (MCEM) method, a global search method, to estimate the parameter of the probability distribution as the first solution to SIRL. With our approach, it is possible to observe the deep intrinsic property in IRL from a global viewpoint, and the technique achieves a considerable robust recovery performance on the classic learning environment, objectworld.

The learning of predictive models for data-driven decision support has been a prevalent topic in many fields. However, construction of models that would capture interactions among input variables is a challenging task. In this paper, we present a new preference learning approach for multiple criteria sorting with potentially interacting criteria. It employs an additive piecewise-linear value function as the basic preference model, which is augmented with components for handling the interactions. To construct such a model from a given set of assignment examples concerning reference alternatives, we develop a convex quadratic programming model. Since its complexity does not depend on the number of training samples, the proposed approach is capable for dealing with data-intensive tasks. To improve the generalization of the constructed model on new instances and to overcome the problem of over-fitting, we employ the regularization techniques. We also propose a few novel methods for classifying non-reference alternatives in order to enhance the applicability of our approach to different datasets. The practical usefulness of the proposed method is demonstrated on a problem of parametric evaluation of research units, whereas its predictive performance is studied on several monotone learning datasets. The experimental results indicate that our approach compares favourably with the classical UTADIS method and the Choquet integral-based sorting model.

We analyze a new robust method for the reconstruction of probability distributions of observed data in the presence of output outliers. It is based on a so-called gradient conjugate prior (GCP) network which outputs the parameters of a prior. By rigorously studying the dynamics of the GCP learning process, we derive an explicit formula for correcting the obtained variance of the marginal distribution and removing the bias caused by outliers in the training set. Assuming a Gaussian (input-dependent) ground truth distribution contaminated with a proportion $\varepsilon$ of outliers, we show that the fitted mean is in a $c e^{-1/\varepsilon}$-neighborhood of the ground truth mean and the corrected variance is in a $b\varepsilon$-neighborhood of the ground truth variance, whereas the uncorrected variance of the marginal distribution can even be infinite. We explicitly find $b$ as a function of the output of the GCP network, without a priori knowledge of the outliers (possibly input-dependent) distribution. Experiments with synthetic and real-world data sets indicate that the GCP network fitted with a standard optimizer outperforms other robust methods for regression.

Numerous methods for crafting adversarial examples were proposed recently with high success rate. Most existing works normalize images into a continuous, real vector, domain firstly, and then craft adversarial examples in this domain. However, "adversarial" examples may become benign after de-normalizing them back into the discrete integer domain, known as the discretization problem. The discretization problem was mentioned in some work, but was underestimated and has received relatively little attention. In this work, we conduct the first comprehensive study of the discretization problem. We theoretically analyze 34 representative methods and empirically study 20 representative open source tools for crafting adversarial images. Our study reveals that almost all existing works suffer from the discretization problem and it is far more serious than originally thought. For instance, most black-box methods downgrade to white-box ones and methods having higher success rates drop down to lower high success rates, e.g., from 100% to 10%. This suggests that the discretization problem should be taken into account when crafting adversarial examples. As a first step towards addressing this problem, we propose a black-box method which reduces the adversarial example searching problem to a derivative-free optimization problem. Our method is able to craft `real' adversarial images by derivative-free search on the discrete integer domain. Experimental results show that our method achieves significantly higher success rate in terms of adversarial examples in the discrete integer domain than most other methods, no matter white-box or black-box. Moreover, our method is able to handle models that is non-differentiable and we successfully break the winner of NIPS 17 competition on defense with 95% success rate.

A new approach for blind channel equalization and decoding, using variational autoencoders (VAEs), is introduced. We first consider the reconstruction of uncoded data symbols transmitted over a noisy linear intersymbol interference (ISI) channel, with an unknown impulse response, without using pilot symbols. We derive an approximated maximum likelihood estimate to the channel parameters and reconstruct the transmitted data. We demonstrate significant and consistent improvements in the error rate of the reconstructed symbols, compared to existing blind equalization methods such as constant modulus, thus enabling faster channel acquisition. The VAE equalizer uses a fully convolutional neural network with a small number of free parameters. These results are extended to blind equalization over a noisy nonlinear ISI channel with unknown parameters. We then consider coded communication using low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes transmitted over a noisy linear or nonlinear ISI channel. The goal is to reconstruct the transmitted message from the channel observations corresponding to a transmitted codeword, without using pilot symbols. We demonstrate substantial improvements compared to expectation maximization (EM) using turbo equalization. Furthermore, in our simulations we demonstrate a relatively small gap between the performance of the new unsupervised equalization method and that of the fully channel informed (non-blind) turbo equalizer.

Whether helping businesses grow through divestitures and carve outs, or optimizing diligence for corporate board members and C-Suite decision makers, AI and ML in M&A are here to stay. We always read about new technology disrupting the status quo through innovation and AI, but how is this changing Mergers and Acquisitions? I was pleased to take a deep dive this month in Dallas -- discussing what's new since last year's The Deal conference in Chicago -- with my Grant Thornton colleagues Jim Peko, National Managing Principal of Transaction Services, and Jason Pizza, Managing Director of Strategic Solutions. Technology is nothing new in the complex world of M&A. For years, conventional technologies like Excel spreadsheets were central to analysts' M&A work.