Statistical Learning
Hypergraph Clustering in the Weighted Stochastic Block Model via Convex Relaxation of Truncated MLE
Lee, Jeonghwan, Kim, Daesung, Chung, Hye Won
We study hypergraph clustering under the weighted $d$-uniform hypergraph stochastic block model ($d$-WHSBM), where each edge consisting of $d$ nodes has higher expected weight if $d$ nodes are from the same community compared to edges consisting of nodes from different communities. We propose a new hypergraph clustering algorithm, which is a convex relaxation of truncated maximum likelihood estimator (CRTMLE), that can handle the relatively sparse, high-dimensional regime of the $d$-WHSBM with community sizes of different orders. We provide performance guarantees of this algorithm under a unified framework for different parameter regimes, and show that it achieves the order-wise optimal or the best existing results for approximately balanced community sizes. We also demonstrate the first recovery guarantees for the setting with growing number of communities of unbalanced sizes.
Spectral Clustering Revisited: Information Hidden in the Fiedler Vector
DePavia, Adela, Steinerberger, Stefan
We are interested in the clustering problem on graphs: it is known that if there are two underlying clusters, then the signs of the eigenvector corresponding to the second largest eigenvalue of the adjacency matrix can reliably reconstruct the two clusters. We argue that the vertices for which the eigenvector has the largest and the smallest entries, respectively, are unusually strongly connected to their own cluster and more reliably classified than the rest. This can be regarded as a discrete version of the Hot Spots conjecture and should be useful in applications. We give a rigorous proof for the stochastic block model and several examples.
Efficient Clustering for Stretched Mixtures: Landscape and Optimality
Wang, Kaizheng, Yan, Yuling, Diaz, Mateo
This paper considers a canonical clustering problem where one receives unlabeled samples drawn from a balanced mixture of two elliptical distributions and aims for a classifier to estimate the labels. Many popular methods including PCA and k-means require individual components of the mixture to be somewhat spherical, and perform poorly when they are stretched. To overcome this issue, we propose a non-convex program seeking for an affine transform to turn the data into a one-dimensional point cloud concentrating around -1 and 1, after which clustering becomes easy. Our theoretical contributions are two-fold: (1) we show that the non-convex loss function exhibits desirable landscape properties as long as the sample size exceeds some constant multiple of the dimension, and (2) we leverage this to prove that an efficient first-order algorithm achieves near-optimal statistical precision even without good initialization. We also propose a general methodology for multi-class clustering tasks with flexible choices of feature transforms and loss objectives.
Software System for Road Condition Forecast Correction
Smolyakov, Dmitrii, Burnaev, Evgeny
Some of them depend on human behavior; others depend on infrastructure conditions. For example, in many regions of the Russian Federation, spring and autumn temperatures can fluctuate near 0 C, which in combination with rains and high humidity could lead to ice formation on the roads. Detection of these conditions is essential for road safety. Online monitoring allows preventing road accidents by early maintenance; for example, we can use video monitoring of roads' conditions. Machine learning techniques enable detecting ice formation automatically.
K-Core based Temporal Graph Convolutional Network for Dynamic Graphs
Liu, Jingxin, Xu, Chang, Yin, Chang, Wu, Weiqiang, Song, You
Graph representation learning is a fundamental task of various applications, aiming to learn low-dimensional embeddings for nodes which can preserve graph topology information. However, many existing methods focus on static graphs while ignoring graph evolving patterns. Inspired by the success of graph convolutional networks(GCNs) in static graph embedding, we propose a novel k-core based temporal graph convolutional network, namely CTGCN, to learn node representations for dynamic graphs. In contrast to previous dynamic graph embedding methods, CTGCN can preserve both local connective proximity and global structural similarity in a unified framework while simultaneously capturing graph dynamics. In the proposed framework, the traditional graph convolution operation is generalized into two parts: feature transformation and feature aggregation, which gives CTGCN more flexibility and enables CTGCN to learn connective and structural information under the same framework. Experimental results on 7 real-world graphs demonstrate CTGCN outperforms existing state-of-the-art graph embedding methods in several tasks, such as link prediction and structural role classification. The source code of this work can be obtained from https://github.com/jhljx/CTGCN.
Multi-target regression via output space quantization
Spyromitros-Xioufis, Eleftherios, Sechidis, Konstantinos, Vlahavas, Ioannis
Multi-target regression is concerned with the prediction of multiple continuous target variables using a shared set of predictors. Two key challenges in multi-target regression are: (a) modelling target dependencies and (b) scalability to large output spaces. In this paper, a new multi-target regression method is proposed that tries to jointly address these challenges via a novel problem transformation approach. The proposed method, called MRQ, is based on the idea of quantizing the output space in order to transform the multiple continuous targets into one or more discrete ones. Learning on the transformed output space naturally enables modeling of target dependencies while the quantization strategy can be flexibly parameterized to control the trade-off between prediction accuracy and computational efficiency. Experiments on a large collection of benchmark datasets show that MRQ is both highly scalable and also competitive with the state-of-the-art in terms of accuracy. In particular, an ensemble version of MRQ obtains the best overall accuracy, while being an order of magnitude faster than the runner up method.
All the Data Processing Terms You Need to Know, According to a Data Scientist
Some people may even wonder what data science really means. At its core, data science seeks to comprehend the what and the why questions. This article aims to introduce all the branches of data science and explain its various phases. Below is a quick look at all the terms and techniques that I'll be reviewing in this article: Data access is the first step in any data science project. It refers to the data scientist's ability to read, write or receive the data within a database or a remote repository.
Deep Markov Spatio-Temporal Factorization
Farnoosh, Amirreza, Rezaei, Behnaz, Sennesh, Eli Zachary, Khan, Zulqarnain, Dy, Jennifer, Satpute, Ajay, Hutchinson, J Benjamin, van de Meent, Jan-Willem, Ostadabbas, Sarah
We introduce deep Markov spatio-temporal factorization (DMSTF), a deep generative model for spatio-temporal data. Like other factor analysis methods, DMSTF approximates high-dimensional data by a product between time-dependent weights and spatially dependent factors. These weights and factors are in turn represented in terms of lower-dimensional latent variables that we infer using stochastic variational inference. The innovation in DMSTF is that we parameterize weights in terms of a deep Markovian prior, which is able to characterize nonlinear temporal dynamics. We parameterize the corresponding variational distribution using a bidirectional recurrent network. This results in a flexible family of hierarchical deep generative factor analysis models that can be extended to perform time series clustering, or perform factor analysis in the presence of a control signal. Our experiments, which consider simulated data, fMRI data, and traffic data, demonstrate that DMSTF outperforms related methods in terms of reconstruction accuracy and can perform forecasting in a variety domains with nonlinear temporal transitions.
Smarter Parking: Using AI to Identify Parking Inefficiencies in Vancouver
Graham, Devon, Sarraf, Satish Kumar, Lundy, Taylor, MohammadMehr, Ali, Uppal, Sara, Lee, Tae Yoon, Zarkoob, Hedayat, Kominers, Scott Duke, Leyton-Brown, Kevin
On-street parking is convenient, but has many disadvantages: on-street spots come at the expense of other road uses such as traffic lanes, transit lanes, bike lanes, or parklets; drivers looking for parking contribute substantially to traffic congestion and hence to greenhouse gas emissions; safety is reduced both due to the fact that drivers looking for spots are more distracted than other road users and that people exiting parked cars pose a risk to cyclists. These social costs may not be worth paying when off-street parking lots are nearby and have surplus capacity. To see where this might be true in downtown Vancouver, we used artificial intelligence techniques to estimate the amount of time it would take drivers to both park on and off street for destinations throughout the city. For on-street parking, we developed (1) a deep-learning model of block-by-block parking availability based on data from parking meters and audits and (2) a computational simulation of drivers searching for an on-street spot. For off-street parking, we developed a computational simulation of the time it would take drivers drive from their original destination to the nearest city-owned off-street lot and then to queue for a spot based on traffic and lot occupancy data. Finally, in both cases we also computed the time it would take the driver to walk from their parking spot to their original destination. We compared these time estimates for destinations in each block of Vancouver's downtown core and each hour of the day. We found many areas where off street would actually save drivers time over searching the streets for a spot, and many more where the time cost for parking off street was small. The identification of such areas provides an opportunity for the city to repurpose valuable curbside space for community-friendly uses more in line with its transportation goals.
Crowdsourced Labeling for Worker-Task Specialization Block Model
We consider crowdsourced labeling under a worker-task specialization block model, where each worker and task is associated with one particular type among a finite set of types and a worker provides a more reliable answer to tasks of the matched type than to the tasks of unmatched types. We design an inference algorithm that recovers binary task labels (up to any given recovery accuracy) by using worker clustering and weighted majority voting. The designed inference algorithm does not require any information about worker types, task types as well as worker reliability parameters, and achieve any targeted recovery accuracy with the best known performance (minimum number of queries per task) for any parameter regimes.