Statistical Learning
On the Algorithmic Stability of Adversarial Training
The adversarial training is a popular tool to remedy the vulnerability of deep learning models against adversarial attacks, and there is rich theoretical literature on the training loss of adversarial training algorithms. In contrast, this paper studies the algorithmic stability of a generic adversarial training algorithm, which can further help to establish an upper bound for generalization error. By figuring out the stability upper bound and lower bound, we argue that the non-differentiability issue of adversarial training causes worse algorithmic stability than their natural counterparts. To tackle this problem, we consider a noise injection method. While the non-differentiability problem seriously affects the stability of adversarial training, injecting noise enables the training trajectory to avoid the occurrence of non-differentiability with dominating probability, hence enhancing the stability performance of adversarial training. Our analysis also studies the relation between the algorithm stability and numerical approximation error of adversarial attacks.
Conditional Independence Estimates for the Generalized Nonparanormal
Shah, Ujas, Lladser, Manuel, Morrison, Rebecca
For general non-Gaussian distributions, the covariance and precision matrices do not encode the independence structure of the variables, as they do for the multivariate Gaussian. This paper builds on previous work to show that for a class of non-Gaussian distributions -- those derived from diagonal transformations of a Gaussian -- information about the conditional independence structure can still be inferred from the precision matrix, provided the data meet certain criteria, analogous to the Gaussian case. We call such transformations of the Gaussian as the generalized nonparanormal. The functions that define these transformations are, in a broad sense, arbitrary. We also provide a simple and computationally efficient algorithm that leverages this theory to recover conditional independence structure from the generalized nonparanormal data. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated via synthetic experiments and applications to real-world data.
Uniform convergence for Gaussian kernel ridge regression
Dommel, Paul, Lakshmanan, Rajmadan
This paper establishes the first polynomial convergence rates for Gaussian kernel ridge regression (KRR) with a fixed hyperparameter in both the uniform and the $L^{2}$-norm. The uniform convergence result closes a gap in the theoretical understanding of KRR with the Gaussian kernel, where no such rates were previously known. In addition, we prove a polynomial $L^{2}$-convergence rate in the case, where the Gaussian kernel's width parameter is fixed. This also contributes to the broader understanding of smooth kernels, for which previously only sub-polynomial $L^{2}$-rates were known in similar settings. Together, these results provide new theoretical justification for the use of Gaussian KRR with fixed hyperparameters in nonparametric regression.
Quantization through Piecewise-Affine Regularization: Optimization and Statistical Guarantees
Optimization problems over discrete or quantized variables are very challenging in general due to the combinatorial nature of their search space. Piecewise-affine regularization (PAR) provides a flexible modeling and computational framework for quantization based on continuous optimization. In this work, we focus on the setting of supervised learning and investigate the theoretical foundations of PAR from optimization and statistical perspectives. First, we show that in the overparameterized regime, where the number of parameters exceeds the number of samples, every critical point of the PAR-regularized loss function exhibits a high degree of quantization. Second, we derive closed-form proximal mappings for various (convex, quasi-convex, and non-convex) PARs and show how to solve PAR-regularized problems using the proximal gradient method, its accelerated variant, and the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers. Third, we study statistical guarantees of PAR-regularized linear regression problems; specifically, we can approximate classical formulations of $\ell_1$-, squared $\ell_2$-, and nonconvex regularizations using PAR and obtain similar statistical guarantees with quantized solutions.
Borrowing From the Future: Enhancing Early Risk Assessment through Contrastive Learning
Sun, Minghui, Engelhard, Matthew M., Goldstein, Benjamin A.
Risk assessments for a pediatric population are often conducted across multiple stages. For example, clinicians may evaluate risks prenatally, at birth, and during Well-Child visits. Although predictions made at later stages typically achieve higher precision, it is clinically desirable to make reliable risk assessments as early as possible. Therefore, this study focuses on improving prediction performance in early-stage risk assessments. Our solution, \textbf{Borrowing From the Future (BFF)}, is a contrastive multi-modal framework that treats each time window as a distinct modality. In BFF, a model is trained on all available data throughout the time while performing a risk assessment using up-to-date information. This contrastive framework allows the model to ``borrow'' informative signals from later stages (e.g., Well-Child visits) to implicitly supervise the learning at earlier stages (e.g., prenatal/birth stages). We validate BFF on two real-world pediatric outcome prediction tasks, demonstrating consistent improvements in early risk assessments. The code is available at https://github.com/scotsun/bff.
MDNS: Masked Diffusion Neural Sampler via Stochastic Optimal Control
Zhu, Yuchen, Guo, Wei, Choi, Jaemoo, Liu, Guan-Horng, Chen, Yongxin, Tao, Molei
We study the problem of learning a neural sampler to generate samples from discrete state spaces where the target probability mass function $ฯ\propto\mathrm{e}^{-U}$ is known up to a normalizing constant, which is an important task in fields such as statistical physics, machine learning, combinatorial optimization, etc. To better address this challenging task when the state space has a large cardinality and the distribution is multi-modal, we propose $\textbf{M}$asked $\textbf{D}$iffusion $\textbf{N}$eural $\textbf{S}$ampler ($\textbf{MDNS}$), a novel framework for training discrete neural samplers by aligning two path measures through a family of learning objectives, theoretically grounded in the stochastic optimal control of the continuous-time Markov chains. We validate the efficiency and scalability of MDNS through extensive experiments on various distributions with distinct statistical properties, where MDNS learns to accurately sample from the target distributions despite the extremely high problem dimensions and outperforms other learning-based baselines by a large margin. A comprehensive study of ablations and extensions is also provided to demonstrate the efficacy and potential of the proposed framework.
Scalable h-adaptive probabilistic solver for time-independent and time-dependent systems
Thakur, Akshay, Kumar, Sawan, Zahr, Matthew, Chakraborty, Souvik
Solving partial differential equations (PDEs) within the framework of probabilistic numerics offers a principled approach to quantifying epistemic uncertainty arising from discretization. By leveraging Gaussian process regression and imposing the governing PDE as a constraint at a finite set of collocation points, probabilistic numerics delivers mesh-free solutions at arbitrary locations. However, the high computational cost, which scales cubically with the number of collocation points, remains a critical bottleneck, particularly for large-scale or high-dimensional problems. We propose a scalable enhancement to this paradigm through two key innovations. First, we develop a stochastic dual descent algorithm that reduces the per-iteration complexity from cubic to linear in the number of collocation points, enabling tractable inference. Second, we exploit a clustering-based active learning strategy that adaptively selects collocation points to maximize information gain while minimizing computational expense. Together, these contributions result in an $h$-adaptive probabilistic solver that can scale to a large number of collocation points. We demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed solver on benchmark PDEs, including two- and three-dimensional steady-state elliptic problems, as well as a time-dependent parabolic PDE formulated in a space-time setting.
Bayesian Models for Joint Selection of Features and Auto-Regressive Lags: Theory and Applications in Environmental and Financial Forecasting
Manna, Alokesh, Ghosh, Sujit K.
We develop a Bayesian framework for variable selection in linear regression with autocorrelated errors, accommodating lagged covariates and autoregressive structures. This setting occurs in time series applications where responses depend on contemporaneous or past explanatory variables and persistent stochastic shocks, including financial modeling, hydrological forecasting, and meteorological applications requiring temporal dependency capture. Our methodology uses hierarchical Bayesian models with spike-and-slab priors to simultaneously select relevant covariates and lagged error terms. We propose an efficient two-stage MCMC algorithm separating sampling of variable inclusion indicators and model parameters to address high-dimensional computational challenges. Theoretical analysis establishes posterior selection consistency under mild conditions, even when candidate predictors grow exponentially with sample size, common in modern time series with many potential lagged variables. Through simulations and real applications (groundwater depth prediction, S&P 500 log returns modeling), we demonstrate substantial gains in variable selection accuracy and predictive performance. Compared to existing methods, our framework achieves lower MSPE, improved true model component identification, and greater robustness with autocorrelated noise, underscoring practical utility for model interpretation and forecasting in autoregressive settings.
Nonparametric learning of stochastic differential equations from sparse and noisy data
Ganguly, Arnab, Mitra, Riten, Zhou, Jinpu
The paper proposes a systematic framework for building data-driven stochastic differential equation (SDE) models from sparse, noisy observations. Unlike traditional parametric approaches, which assume a known functional form for the drift, our goal here is to learn the entire drift function directly from data without strong structural assumptions, making it especially relevant in scientific disciplines where system dynamics are partially understood or highly complex. We cast the estimation problem as minimization of the penalized negative log-likelihood functional over a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS). In the sparse observation regime, the presence of unobserved trajectory segments makes the SDE likelihood intractable. To address this, we develop an Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm that employs a novel Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) method to approximate the filtering distribution and generate Monte Carlo estimates of the E-step objective. The M-step then reduces to a penalized empirical risk minimization problem in the RKHS, whose minimizer is given by a finite linear combination of kernel functions via a generalized representer theorem. To control model complexity across EM iterations, we also develop a hybrid Bayesian variant of the algorithm that uses shrinkage priors to identify significant coefficients in the kernel expansion. We establish important theoretical convergence results for both the exact and approximate EM sequences. The resulting EM-SMC-RKHS procedure enables accurate estimation of the drift function of stochastic dynamical systems in low-data regimes and is broadly applicable across domains requiring continuous-time modeling under observational constraints. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method through a series of numerical experiments.