Learning Graphical Models
Multiscale guidance of protein structure prediction with heterogeneous cryo-EM data
Protein structure prediction models are now capable of generating accurate 3D structural hypotheses from sequence alone. However, they routinely fail to capture the conformational diversity of dynamic biomolecular complexes, often requiring heuristic MSA subsampling approaches for generating alternative states. In parallel, cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) has emerged as a powerful tool for imaging near-native structural heterogeneity, but is challenged by arduous pipelines to transform raw experimental data into atomic models. Here, we bridge the gap between these modalities, combining cryo-EM density maps with the rich sequence and biophysical priors learned by protein structure prediction models. Our method, CryoBoltz, guides the sampling trajectory of a pretrained biomolecular structure prediction model using both global and local structural constraints derived from density maps, driving predictions towards conformational states consistent with the experimental data. We demonstrate that this flexible yet powerful inferencetime approach allows us to build atomic models into heterogeneous cryo-EM maps across a variety of dynamic biomolecular systems including transporters and antibodies.
Hippocampal-like Sequential Editing for Continual Knowledge Updates in Large Language Models
Large language models (LLMs) are now pivotal in real-world applications. Model editing has emerged as a promising paradigm for efficiently modifying LLMs without full retraining. However, current editing approaches face significant limitations due to parameter drift, which stems from inconsistencies between newly edited knowledge and the model's existing knowledge. In sequential editing scenarios, cumulative drifts progressively lead to model collapse characterized by general capability degradation and balance between acquiring new knowledge and catastrophic forgetting of existing knowledge. Drawing inspiration from the hippocampal trisynaptic circuit for continual memorizing and forgetting, we propose a Hippocampal-like Sequential Editing (HSE) framework that designs the unlearning of obsolete knowledge, domain-specific knowledge update separation and replay for edited knowledge. Specifically, the HSE framework designs three core mechanisms: (1) Machine unlearning selectively erases outdated knowledge to facilitate integration of new information, (2) Fisher information matrix-guided parameter updates prevents cross-domain knowledge interference, and (3) Parameter replay consolidates long-term editing memory through lightweight and global replay of editing data in a parametric form. Theoretical analysis demonstrates that HSE achieves smaller generalization error bounds, more stable convergence and higher computational efficiency.
The Quotient Bayesian Learning Rule
This paper introduces the Quotient Bayesian Learning Rule, an extension of natural-gradient Bayesian updates to probability models that fall outside the exponential family. Building on the observation that many heavy-tailed and otherwise non-exponential distributions arise as marginals of minimal exponential families, we prove that such marginals inherit a unique Fisher-Rao information geometry via the quotient-manifold construction. Exploiting this geometry, we derive the Quotient Natural Gradient algorithm, which takes steepest-descent steps in the well-structured covering space, thereby guaranteeing parameterization-invariant optimization in the target space. Empirical results on the Student-t distribution confirm that our method converges more rapidly and attains higher-quality solutions than previous variants of the Bayesian Learning Rule.
Reliably Detecting Model Failures in Deployment Without Labels
The distribution of data changes over time; models operating in dynamic environments need retraining. But knowing when to retrain, without access to labels, is an open challenge since some, but not all shifts degrade model performance. This paper formalizes and addresses the problem of post-deployment deterioration (PDD) monitoring. We propose D3M, a practical and efficient monitoring algorithm based on the disagreement of predictive models, achieving low false positive rates under non-deteriorating shifts and provides sample complexity bounds for high true positive rates under deteriorating shifts. Empirical results on both standard benchmark and a real-world large-scale internal medicine dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of the framework and highlight its viability as an alert mechanism for high-stakes machine learning pipelines.
Partner Modelling Emerges in Recurrent Agents (But Only When It Matters)
Humans are remarkably adept at collaboration, able to infer the strengths and weaknesses of new partners in order to work successfully towards shared goals. To build AI systems with this capability, we must first understand its building blocks: does such flexibility require explicit, dedicated mechanisms for modelling others--or can it emerge spontaneously from the pressures of open-ended cooperative interaction? To investigate this question, we train simple model-free RNN agents to collaborate with a population of diverse partners. Using the'Overcooked-AI' environment, we collect data from thousands of collaborative teams, and analyse agents' internal hidden states. Despite a lack of additional architectural features, inductive biases, or auxiliary objectives, the agents nevertheless develop structured internal representations of their partners' task abilities, enabling rapid adaptation and generalisation to novel collaborators. We investigated these internal models through probing techniques, and large-scale behavioural analysis. Notably, we find that structured partner modelling emerges when agents can influence partner behaviour by controlling task allocation. Our results show that partner modelling can arise spontaneously in model-free agents--but only under environmental conditions that impose the right kind of social pressure.
Adapting to Stochastic and Adversarial Losses in Episodic MDPs with Aggregate Bandit Feedback
We study online learning in finite-horizon episodic Markov decision processes (MDPs) under the challenging aggregate bandit feedback model, where the learner observes only the cumulative loss incurred in each episode, rather than individual losses at each state-action pair. While prior work in this setting has focused exclusively on worst-case analysis, we initiate the study of best-of-both-worlds (BOBW) algorithms that achieve low regret in both stochastic and adversarial environments. We propose the first BOBW algorithms for episodic tabular MDPs with aggregate bandit feedback. In the case of known transitions, our algorithms achieve O(logT) regret in stochastic settings and O( T) regret in adversarial ones. Importantly, we also establish matching lower bounds, showing the optimality of our algorithms in this setting. We further extend our approach to unknowntransition settings by incorporating confidence-based techniques. Our results rely on a combination of FTRL over occupancy measures, self-bounding techniques, and new loss estimators inspired by recent advances in online shortest path problems. Along the way, we also provide the first individual-gap-dependent lower bounds and demonstrate near-optimal BOBW algorithms for shortest path problems with bandit feedback.
Doubly Robust Alignment for Large Language Models
While RLHF has demonstrated promising results, many algorithms are highly sensitive to misspecifications in the underlying preference model (e.g., the Bradley-Terry model), the reference policy, or the reward function, resulting in undesirable fine-tuning. To address model misspecification, we propose a doubly robust preference optimization algorithm that remains consistent when either the preference model or the reference policy is correctly specified (without requiring both). Our proposal demonstrates superior and more robust performance than state-of-the-art algorithms, both in theory and in practice.
On Minimax Estimation of Parameters in Softmax-Contaminated Mixture of Experts
The softmax-contaminated mixture of experts (MoE) model is deployed when a large-scale pre-trained model, which plays the role of a fixed expert, is fine-tuned for learning downstream tasks by including a new contamination part, or prompt, functioning as a new, trainable expert. Despite its popularity and relevance, the theoretical properties of the softmax-contaminated MoE have remained unexplored in the literature. In the paper, we study the convergence rates of the maximum likelihood estimator of gating and prompt parameters in order to gain insights into the statistical properties and potential challenges of fine-tuning with a new prompt. We find that the estimability of these parameters is compromised when the prompt acquires overlapping knowledge with the pre-trained model, in the sense that we make precise by formulating a novel analytic notion of distinguishability. Under distinguishability of the pre-trained and prompt models, we derive minimax optimal estimation rates for all the gating and prompt parameters. By contrast, when the distinguishability condition is violated, these estimation rates become significantly slower due to their dependence on the prompt convergence rate to the pre-trained model. Finally, we empirically corroborate our theoretical findings through several numerical experiments.
Toward Interpretable Evaluation Measures for Time Series Segmentation
Time series segmentation is a fundamental task in analyzing temporal data across various domains, from human activity recognition to energy monitoring. While numerous state-of-the-art methods have been developed to tackle this problem, the evaluation of their performance remains critically limited. Existing measures predominantly focus on change point accuracy or rely on point-based measures such as Adjusted Rand Index (ARI), which fail to capture the quality of the detected segments, ignore the nature of errors, and offer limited interpretability. In this paper, we address these shortcomings by introducing two novel evaluation measures: WARI (Weighted Adjusted Rand Index), that accounts for the position of segmentation errors, and SMS (State Matching Score), a fine-grained measure that identifies and scores four fundamental types of segmentation errors while allowing error-specific weighting. We empirically validate WARI and SMS on synthetic and real-world benchmarks, showing that they not only provide a more accurate assessment of segmentation quality but also uncover insights, such as error provenance and type, that are inaccessible with traditional measures.