Graph-based semi-supervised node classification (GraphSSC) has wide applications, ranging from networking and security to data mining and machine learning, etc. However, existing centralized GraphSSC methods are impractical to solve many real-world graph-based problems, as collecting the entire graph and labeling a reasonable number of labels is time-consuming and costly, and data privacy may be also violated. Federated learning (FL) is an emerging learning paradigm that enables collaborative learning among multiple clients, which can mitigate the issue of label scarcity and protect data privacy as well. Therefore, performing GraphSSC under the FL setting is a promising solution to solve real-world graph-based problems. However, existing FL methods 1) perform poorly when data across clients are non-IID, 2) cannot handle data with new label domains, and 3) cannot leverage unlabeled data, while all these issues naturally happen in real-world graph-based problems. To address the above issues, we propose the first FL framework, namely GraphFL, for semi-supervised node classification on graphs. Our framework is motivated by meta-learning methods. Specifically, we propose two GraphFL methods to respectively address the non-IID issue in graph data and handle the tasks with new label domains. Furthermore, we design a self-training method to leverage unlabeled graph data. We adopt representative graph neural networks as GraphSSC methods and evaluate GraphFL on multiple graph datasets. Experimental results demonstrate that GraphFL significantly outperforms the compared FL baseline and GraphFL with self-training can obtain better performance.

Tackling semi-supervised learning problems with graph-based methods have become a trend in recent years since graphs can represent all kinds of data and provide a suitable framework for studying continuum limits, e.g., of differential operators. A popular strategy here is $p$-Laplacian learning, which poses a smoothness condition on the sought inference function on the set of unlabeled data. For $p<\infty$ continuum limits of this approach were studied using tools from $\Gamma$-convergence. For the case $p=\infty$, which is referred to as Lipschitz learning, continuum limits of the related infinity-Laplacian equation were studied using the concept of viscosity solutions. In this work, we prove continuum limits of Lipschitz learning using $\Gamma$-convergence. In particular, we define a sequence of functionals which approximate the largest local Lipschitz constant of a graph function and prove $\Gamma$-convergence in the $L^\infty$-topology to the supremum norm of the gradient as the graph becomes denser. Furthermore, we show compactness of the functionals which implies convergence of minimizers. In our analysis we allow a varying set of labeled data which converges to a general closed set in the Hausdorff distance. We apply our results to nonlinear ground states and, as a by-product, prove convergence of graph distance functions to geodesic distance functions.

As the volume of cyberattacks grows, security analysts are always on their heels to provide a shield. To address this issue, developers are showing interest in using Machine Learning (ML) to automate threat-hunting. As a sub-field of machine learning, unsupervised learning is making a footprint in detecting malicious content. Resisting cybersecurity challenges with machine learning is not a new thing. Researchers have been working on it since the late 1980s.

Recent advances in one-shot semi-supervised learning have lowered the barrier for deep learning of new applications. However, the state-of-the-art for semi-supervised learning is slow to train and the performance is sensitive to the choices of the labeled data and hyper-parameter values. In this paper, we present a one-shot semi-supervised learning method that trains up to an order of magnitude faster and is more robust than state-of-the-art methods. Specifically, we show that by combining semi-supervised learning with a one-stage, single network version of self-training, our FROST methodology trains faster and is more robust to choices for the labeled samples and changes in hyper-parameters. Our experiments demonstrate FROST's capability to perform well when the composition of the unlabeled data is unknown; that is when the unlabeled data contain unequal numbers of each class and can contain out-of-distribution examples that don't belong to any of the training classes. High performance, speed of training, and insensitivity to hyper-parameters make FROST the most practical method for one-shot semi-supervised training. Our code is available at https://github.com/HelenaELiu/FROST.

We propose two generic methods for improving semi-supervised learning (SSL). The first integrates weight perturbation (WP) into existing "consistency regularization" (CR) based methods. We implement WP by leveraging variational Bayesian inference (VBI). The second method proposes a novel consistency loss called "maximum uncertainty regularization" (MUR). While most consistency losses act on perturbations in the vicinity of each data point, MUR actively searches for "virtual" points situated beyond this region that cause the most uncertain class predictions. This allows MUR to impose smoothness on a wider area in the input-output manifold. Our experiments show clear improvements in classification errors of various CR based methods when they are combined with VBI or MUR or both.

Active learning is widely used to reduce labeling effort and training time by repeatedly querying only the most beneficial samples from unlabeled data. In real-world problems where data cannot be stored indefinitely due to limited storage or privacy issues, the query selection and the model update should be performed as soon as a new data sample is observed. Various online active learning methods have been studied to deal with these challenges; however, there are difficulties in selecting representative query samples and updating the model efficiently. In this study, we propose Message Passing Adaptive Resonance Theory (MPART) for online active semi-supervised learning. The proposed model learns the distribution and topology of the input data online. It then infers the class of unlabeled data and selects informative and representative samples through message passing between nodes on the topological graph. MPART queries the beneficial samples on-the-fly in stream-based selective sampling scenarios, and continuously improve the classification model using both labeled and unlabeled data. We evaluate our model on visual (MNIST, SVHN, CIFAR-10) and audio (NSynth) datasets with comparable query selection strategies and frequencies, showing that MPART significantly outperforms the competitive models in online active learning environments.

The R Project for Statistical Computing provides an excellent platform to tackle data processing, data manipulation, modeling, and presentation. The capabilities of this language, its freedom of use, and a very active community of users makes R one of the best tools to learn and implement unsupervised learning. If you are new to R or want to learn about unsupervised learning, this book is for you. Packed with critical information, this book will guide you through a conceptual explanation and practical examples programmed directly into the R console. Starting from the beginning, this book introduces you to unsupervised learning and provides a high-level introduction to the topic.

Many real-world problems involve datasets where only some of the data is labeled and the rest is unlabeled. In this post, we discuss our implementation of semi-supervised learning for predicting the synthesizability of theoretical materials. When we think about the materials that will enable next-generation technologies, it's probably not the case that there is one ultimate material waiting to be found that will solve all our problems. The problems we need to solve (producing and storing clean energy, mitigating climate change, desalinating water, etc.) are complex and varied. Even zooming in to the next-generation of electronics, computers, and nanotechnology, there probably isn't a single perfect material to exploit in the same way that silicon has been used in all our familiar devices.

Multi-view clustering has been applied in many real-world applications where original data often contain noises. Some graph-based multi-view clustering methods have been proposed to try to reduce the negative influence of noises. However, previous graph-based multi-view clustering methods treat all features equally even if there are redundant features or noises, which is obviously unreasonable. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-view clustering framework Double Self-weighted Multi-view Clustering (DSMC) to overcome the aforementioned deficiency. DSMC performs double self-weighted operations to remove redundant features and noises from each graph, thereby obtaining robust graphs. For the first self-weighted operation, it assigns different weights to different features by introducing an adaptive weight matrix, which can reinforce the role of the important features in the joint representation and make each graph robust. For the second self-weighting operation, it weights different graphs by imposing an adaptive weight factor, which can assign larger weights to more robust graphs. Furthermore, by designing an adaptive multiple graphs fusion, we can fuse the features in the different graphs to integrate these graphs for clustering. Experiments on six real-world datasets demonstrate its advantages over other state-of-the-art multi-view clustering methods.

The field of AI is expanding very quickly and becoming a major research field. As the field expands, sub-fields and sub-subfields of AI have started to appear. Although we cannot master the entire field, we can at least be informed about the major learning approach. The purpose of this post was to make you acquainted with these four machine learning approaches. In the upcoming post, we will cover other AI essentials.