We provide a simple method and relevant theoretical analysis for efficiently estimating higher-order lp distances. While the analysis mainly focuses on l4, our methodology extends naturally to p = 6,8,10..., (i.e., when p is even). Distance-based methods are popular in machine learning. In large-scale applications, storing, computing, and retrieving the distances can be both space and time prohibitive. Efficient algorithms exist for estimating lp distances if 0 < p <= 2. The task for p > 2 is known to be difficult. Our work partially fills this gap.

Logitboost is an influential boosting algorithm for classification. In this paper, we develop robust logitboost to provide an explicit formulation of tree-split criterion for building weak learners (regression trees) for logitboost. This formulation leads to a numerically stable implementation of logitboost. We then propose abc-logitboost for multi-class classification, by combining robust logitboost with the prior work of abc-boost. Previously, abc-boost was implemented as abc-mart using the mart algorithm. Our extensive experiments on multi-class classification compare four algorithms: mart, abcmart, (robust) logitboost, and abc-logitboost, and demonstrate the superiority of abc-logitboost. Comparisons with other learning methods including SVM and deep learning are also available through prior publications.

Exponential family extensions of principal component analysis (EPCA) have received a considerable amount of attention in recent years, demonstrating the growing need for basic modeling tools that do not assume the squared loss or Gaussian distribution. We extend the EPCA model toolbox by presenting the first exponential family multi-view learning methods of the partial least squares and canonical correlation analysis, based on a unified representation of EPCA as matrix factorization of the natural parameters of exponential family. The models are based on a new family of priors that are generally usable for all such factorizations. We also introduce new inference strategies, and demonstrate how the methods outperform earlier ones when the Gaussianity assumption does not hold.

Over the past two decades, several consistent procedures have been designed to infer causal conclusions from observational data. We prove that if the true causal network might be an arbitrary, linear Gaussian network or a discrete Bayes network, then every unambiguous causal conclusion produced by a consistent method from non-experimental data is subject to reversal as the sample size increases any finite number of times. That result, called the causal flipping theorem, extends prior results to the effect that causal discovery cannot be reliable on a given sample size. We argue that since repeated flipping of causal conclusions is unavoidable in principle for consistent methods, the best possible discovery methods are consistent methods that retract their earlier conclusions no more than necessary. A series of simulations of various methods across a wide range of sample sizes illustrates concretely both the theorem and the principle of comparing methods in terms of retractions.

We introduce a new graphical model for tracking radio-tagged animals and learning their movement patterns. The model provides a principled way to combine radio telemetry data with an arbitrary set of userdefined, spatial features. We describe an efficient stochastic gradient algorithm for fitting model parameters to data and demonstrate its effectiveness via asymptotic analysis and synthetic experiments. We also apply our model to real datasets, and show that it outperforms the most popular radio telemetry software package used in ecology. We conclude that integration of different data sources under a single statistical framework, coupled with appropriate parameter and state estimation procedures, produces both accurate location estimates and an interpretable statistical model of animal movement.

There is much interest in the Hierarchical Dirichlet Process Hidden Markov Model (HDP-HMM) as a natural Bayesian nonparametric extension of the traditional HMM. However, in many settings the HDP-HMM's strict Markovian constraints are undesirable, particularly if we wish to learn or encode non-geometric state durations. We can extend the HDP-HMM to capture such structure by drawing upon explicit-duration semi-Markovianity, which has been developed in the parametric setting to allow construction of highly interpretable models that admit natural prior information on state durations. In this paper we introduce the explicitduration HDP-HSMM and develop posterior sampling algorithms for efficient inference in both the direct-assignment and weak-limit approximation settings. We demonstrate the utility of the model and our inference methods on synthetic data as well as experiments on a speaker diarization problem and an example of learning the patterns in Morse code.

Cyber-physical systems, such as mobile robots, must respond adaptively to dynamic operating conditions. Effective operation of these systems requires that sensing and actuation tasks are performed in a timely manner. Additionally, execution of mission specific tasks such as imaging a room must be balanced against the need to perform more general tasks such as obstacle avoidance. This problem has been addressed by maintaining relative utilization of shared resources among tasks near a user-specified target level. Producing optimal scheduling strategies requires complete prior knowledge of task behavior, which is unlikely to be available in practice. Instead, suitable scheduling strategies must be learned online through interaction with the system. We consider the sample complexity of reinforcement learning in this domain, and demonstrate that while the problem state space is countably infinite, we may leverage the problem's structure to guarantee efficient learning.

We consider learning continuous probabilistic graphical models in the face of missing data. For non-Gaussian models, learning the parameters and structure of such models depends on our ability to perform efficient inference, and can be prohibitive even for relatively modest domains. Recently, we introduced the Copula Bayesian Network (CBN) density model - a flexible framework that captures complex high-dimensional dependency structures while offering direct control over the univariate marginals, leading to improved generalization. In this work we show that the CBN model also offers significant computational advantages when training data is partially observed. Concretely, we leverage on the specialized form of the model to derive a computationally amenable learning objective that is a lower bound on the log-likelihood function. Importantly, our energy-like bound circumvents the need for costly inference of an auxiliary distribution, thus facilitating practical learning of highdimensional densities. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach for learning the structure and parameters of a CBN model for two reallife continuous domains.

We consider two variables that are related to each other by an invertible function. While it has previously been shown that the dependence structure of the noise can provide hints to determine which of the two variables is the cause, we presently show that even in the deterministic (noise-free) case, there are asymmetries that can be exploited for causal inference. Our method is based on the idea that if the function and the probability density of the cause are chosen independently, then the distribution of the effect will, in a certain sense, depend on the function. We provide a theoretical analysis of this method, showing that it also works in the low noise regime, and link it to information geometry. We report strong empirical results on various real-world data sets from different domains.

We extend the herding algorithm to continuous spaces by using the kernel trick. The resulting "kernel herding" algorithm is an infinite memory deterministic process that learns to approximate a PDF with a collection of samples. We show that kernel herding decreases the error of expectations of functions in the Hilbert space at a rate O(1/T) which is much faster than the usual O(1/pT) for iid random samples. We illustrate kernel herding by approximating Bayesian predictive distributions.