Prediction is critical for decision-making under uncertainty and lends validity to statistical inference. With targeted prediction, the goal is to optimize predictions for specific decision tasks of interest, which we represent via functionals. Although classical decision analysis extracts predictions from a Bayesian model, these predictions are often difficult to interpret and slow to compute. Instead, we design a class of parametrized actions for Bayesian decision analysis that produce optimal, scalable, and simple targeted predictions. For a wide variety of action parametrizations and loss functions--including linear actions with sparsity constraints for targeted variable selection--we derive a convenient representation of the optimal targeted prediction that yields efficient and interpretable solutions. Customized out-of-sample predictive metrics are developed to evaluate and compare among targeted predictors. Through careful use of the posterior predictive distribution, we introduce a procedure that identifies a set of near-optimal, or acceptable targeted predictors, which provide unique insights into the features and level of complexity needed for accurate targeted prediction. Simulations demonstrate excellent prediction, estimation, and variable selection capabilities. Targeted predictions are constructed for physical activity data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to better predict and understand the characteristics of intraday physical activity.

One of the main approaches for causal structure learning is constraint-based methods. These methods are particularly valued as they are guaranteed to asymptotically find a structure which is statistically equivalent to the ground truth. However, they may require exponentially large number of conditional independence (CI) tests in the number of variables of the system. In this paper, we propose a novel recursive constraint-based method for causal structure learning. The key idea of the proposed approach is to recursively use Markov blanket information in order to identify a variable that can be removed from the set of variables without changing the statistical relations among the remaining variables. Once such a variable is found, its neighbors are identified, the removable variable is removed, and the Markov blanket information of the remaining variables is updated. Our proposed approach reduces the required number of conditional independence tests for structure learning compared to the state of the art. We also provide a lower bound on the number of CI tests required by any constraint-based method. Comparing this lower bound to our achievable bound demonstrates the efficiency of our approach. We evaluate and compare the performance of the proposed method on both synthetic and real world structures against the state of the art.

Product risk assessment is the overall process of determining whether a product, which could be anything from a type of washing machine to a type of teddy bear, is judged safe for consumers to use. There are several methods used for product risk assessment, including RAPEX, which is the primary method used by regulators in the UK and EU. However, despite its widespread use, we identify several limitations of RAPEX including a limited approach to handling uncertainty and the inability to incorporate causal explanations for using and interpreting test data. In contrast, Bayesian Networks (BNs) are a rigorous, normative method for modelling uncertainty and causality which are already used for risk assessment in domains such as medicine and finance, as well as critical systems generally. This article proposes a BN model that provides an improved systematic method for product risk assessment that resolves the identified limitations with RAPEX. We use our proposed method to demonstrate risk assessments for a teddy bear and a new uncertified kettle for which there is no testing data and the number of product instances is unknown. We show that, while we can replicate the results of the RAPEX method, the BN approach is more powerful and flexible.

This leads to the desire of an accurate space encoding that enables performance prediction In this paper, we propose an approach to neural architecture via surrogates and black-box optimization to find search (NAS) based on graph embeddings. NAS has high-performing architectures in a continuous search space been addressed previously using discrete, sampling based [67]. Zhang et al. [67] propose D-VAE, a graph neural network methods, which are computationally expensive as well as (GNN) [14, 23, 56] based variational neural architecture differentiable approaches, which come at lower costs but embedding with emphasis on the information flow and enforce stronger constraints on the search space. The proposed thereby achieve good results in architecture performance approach leverages advantages from both sides by prediction and BO on the ENAS search space [39] and on a building a smooth variational neural architecture embedding dataset of Bayesian Networks.

Pre-trained Transformer-based neural architectures have consistently achieved state-of-the-art performance in the Natural Language Inference (NLI) task. Since NLI examples encompass a variety of linguistic, logical, and reasoning phenomena, it remains unclear as to which specific concepts are learnt by the trained systems and where they can achieve strong generalization. To investigate this question, we propose a taxonomic hierarchy of categories that are relevant for the NLI task. We introduce TAXINLI, a new dataset, that has 10k examples from the MNLI dataset (Williams et al., 2018) with these taxonomic labels. Through various experiments on TAXINLI, we observe that whereas for certain taxonomic categories SOTA neural models have achieved near perfect accuracies - a large jump over the previous models - some categories still remain difficult. Our work adds to the growing body of literature that shows the gaps in the current NLI systems and datasets through a systematic presentation and analysis of reasoning categories.

Sparse sequences of neural spikes are posited to underlie aspects of working memory, motor production, and learning. Discovering these sequences in an unsupervised manner is a longstanding problem in statistical neuroscience. Promising recent work utilized a convolutive nonnegative matrix factorization model to tackle this challenge. However, this model requires spike times to be discretized, utilizes a sub-optimal least-squares criterion, and does not provide uncertainty estimates for model predictions or estimated parameters. We address each of these shortcomings by developing a point process model that characterizes fine-scale sequences at the level of individual spikes and represents sequence occurrences as a small number of marked events in continuous time. This ultra-sparse representation of sequence events opens new possibilities for spike train modeling. For example, we introduce learnable time warping parameters to model sequences of varying duration, which have been experimentally observed in neural circuits. We demonstrate these advantages on experimental recordings from songbird higher vocal center and rodent hippocampus.

Algorithmic fairness has received lots of interests in machine learning recently. In this paper, we focus on the bipartite ranking scenario, where the instances come from either the positive or negative class and the goal is to learn a ranking function that ranks positive instances higher than negative ones. In an unfair setting, the probabilities of ranking the positives higher than negatives are different across different protected groups. We propose a general post-processing framework, xOrder, for achieving fairness in bipartite ranking while maintaining the algorithm classification performance. In particular, we optimize a weighted sum of the utility and fairness by directly adjusting the relative ordering across groups. We formulate this problem as identifying an optimal warping path across {different} protected groups and solve it through a dynamic programming process. xOrder is compatible with various classification models and applicable to a variety of ranking fairness metrics. We evaluate our proposed algorithm on four benchmark data sets and two real world patient electronic health record repository. The experimental results show that our approach can achieve great balance between the algorithm utility and ranking fairness. Our algorithm can also achieve robust performance when training and testing ranking score distributions are significantly different.

Neural Network (NN) classifiers can assign extreme probabilities to samples that have not appeared during training (out-of-distribution samples) resulting in erroneous and unreliable predictions. One of the causes for this unwanted behaviour lies in the use of the standard softmax operator which pushes the posterior probabilities to be either zero or unity hence failing to model uncertainty. The statistical derivation of the softmax operator relies on the assumption that the distributions of the latent variables for a given class are Gaussian with known variance. However, it is possible to use different assumptions in the same derivation and attain from other families of distributions as well. This allows derivation of novel operators with more favourable properties. Here, a novel operator is proposed that is derived using $t$-distributions which are capable of providing a better description of uncertainty. It is shown that classifiers that adopt this novel operator can be more robust to out of distribution samples, often outperforming NNs that use the standard softmax operator. These enhancements can be reached with minimal changes to the NN architecture.

Quasi-Maximum Likelihood (QML) procedures are theoretically appealing and widely used for statistical inference. While there are extensive references on QML estimation in batch settings, the QML estimation in streaming settings has attracted little attention until recently. An investigation of the convergence properties of the QML procedure in a general conditionally heteroscedastic time series model is conducted, and the classical batch optimization routines extended to the framework of streaming and large-scale problems. An adaptive recursive estimation routine for GARCH models named AdaVol is presented. The AdaVol procedure relies on stochastic approximations combined with the technique of Variance Targeting Estimation (VTE). This recursive method has computationally efficient properties, while VTE alleviates some convergence difficulties encountered by the usual QML estimation due to a lack of convexity. Empirical results demonstrate a favorable trade-off between AdaVol's stability and the ability to adapt to time-varying estimates for real-life data.

Hierarchical Multi-Agent Systems provide a convenient and relevant way to analyze, model, and simulate complex systems in which a large number of entities are interacting at different levels of abstraction. In this paper, we introduce HAMLET (Hierarchical Agent-based Machine LEarning plaTform), a platform based on hierarchical multi-agent systems, to facilitate the research and democratization of machine learning entities distributed geographically or locally. This is carried out by firstly modeling the machine learning solutions as a hypergraph and then autonomously setting up a multi-level structure composed of heterogeneous agents based on their innate capabilities and learned skills. HAMLET aids the design and management of machine learning systems and provides analytical capabilities for the research communities to assess the existing and/or new algorithms/datasets through flexible and customizable queries. The proposed platform does not assume restrictions on the type of machine learning algorithms/datasets and is theoretically proven to be sound and complete with polynomial computational requirements. Additionally, it is examined empirically on 120 training and four generalized batch testing tasks performed on 24 machine learning algorithms and 9 standard datasets. The experimental results provided not only establish confidence in the platform's consistency and correctness but also demonstrates its testing and analytical capacity.