In this paper, we present a new strategy to prove the convergence of Deep Learning architectures to a zero training (or even testing) loss by gradient flow. Our analysis is centered on the notion of Rayleigh quotients in order to prove Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz inequalities for a broader set of neural network architectures and loss functions. We show that Rayleigh quotients provide a unified view for several convergence analysis techniques in the literature. Our strategy produces a proof of convergence for various examples of parametric learning. In particular, our analysis does not require the number of parameters to tend to infinity, nor the number of samples to be finite, thus extending to test loss minimization and beyond the over-parameterized regime.

Undirected graphical models are compact representations of joint probability distributions over random variables. To solve inference tasks of interest, graphical models of arbitrary topology can be trained using empirical risk minimization. However, to solve inference tasks that were not seen during training, these models (EGMs) often need to be re-trained. Instead, we propose an inference-agnostic adversarial training framework which produces an infinitely-large ensemble of graphical models (AGMs). The ensemble is optimized to generate data within the GAN framework, and inference is performed using a finite subset of these models.

We propose a general physics-based deep learning architecture for wave-based imaging problems. A key difficulty in imaging problems with a varying background wave speed is that the medium bends'' the waves differently depending on their position and direction. This space-bending geometry makes the equivariance to translations of convolutional networks an undesired inductive bias. We build an interpretable neural architecture inspired by Fourier integral operators (FIOs) which approximate the wave physics. We focus on learning the geometry of wave propagation captured by FIOs, which is implicit in the data, via a loss based on optimal transport.

Deep kernel learning combines the non-parametric flexibility of kernel methods with the inductive biases of deep learning architectures. We propose a novel deep kernel learning model and stochastic variational inference procedure which generalizes deep kernel learning approaches to enable classification, multi-task learning, additive covariance structures, and stochastic gradient training. Specifically, we apply additive base kernels to subsets of output features from deep neural architectures, and jointly learn the parameters of the base kernels and deep network through a Gaussian process marginal likelihood objective. Within this framework, we derive an efficient form of stochastic variational inference which leverages local kernel interpolation, inducing points, and structure exploiting algebra. We show improved performance over stand alone deep networks, SVMs, and state of the art scalable Gaussian processes on several classification benchmarks, including an airline delay dataset containing 6 million training points, CIFAR, and ImageNet.

This paper introduces the QMDP-net, a neural network architecture for planning under partial observability. The QMDP-net combines the strengths of model-free learning and model-based planning. It is a recurrent policy network, but it represents a policy for a parameterized set of tasks by connecting a model with a planning algorithm that solves the model, thus embedding the solution structure of planning in a network learning architecture. The QMDP-net is fully differentiable and allows for end-to-end training. We train a QMDP-net on different tasks so that it can generalize to new ones in the parameterized task set and "transfer" to other similar tasks beyond the set. In preliminary experiments, QMDP-net showed strong performance on several robotic tasks in simulation.

Automatic neural architecture design has shown its potential in discovering powerful neural network architectures. Existing methods, no matter based on reinforcement learning or evolutionary algorithms (EA), conduct architecture search in a discrete space, which is highly inefficient. In this paper, we propose a simple and efficient method to automatic neural architecture design based on continuous optimization. We call this new approach neural architecture optimization (NAO). There are three key components in our proposed approach: (1) An encoder embeds/maps neural network architectures into a continuous space.

The idea of uprooting and rerooting graphical models was introduced specifically for binary pairwise models by Weller [19] as a way to transform a model to any of a whole equivalence class of related models, such that inference on any one model yields inference results for all others. This is very helpful since inference, or relevant bounds, may be much easier to obtain or more accurate for some model in the class. Here we introduce methods to extend the approach to models with higher-order potentials and develop theoretical insights. In particular, we show that the triplet-consistent polytope TRI is unique in being'universally rooted'. We demonstrate empirically that rerooting can significantly improve accuracy of methods of inference for higher-order models at negligible computational cost.

Sudderth, Wainwright, and Willsky conjectured that the Bethe approximation corresponding to any fixed point of the belief propagation algorithm over an attractive, pairwise binary graphical model provides a lower bound on the true partition function. In this work, we resolve this conjecture in the affirmative by demonstrating that, for any graphical model with binary variables whose potential functions (not necessarily pairwise) are all log-supermodular, the Bethe partition function always lower bounds the true partition function. The proof of this result follows from a new variant of the "four functions" theorem that may be of independent interest.

An associative memory is a structure learned from a dataset M of vectors (signals) in a way such that, given a noisy version of one of the vectors as input, the nearest valid vector from M (nearest neighbor) is provided as output, preferably via a fast iterative algorithm. Traditionally, binary (or q-ary) Hopfield neural networks are used to model the above structure. In this paper, for the first time, we propose a model of associative memory based on sparse recovery of signals. Our basic premise is simple. For a dataset, we learn a set of linear constraints that every vector in the dataset must satisfy. Provided these linear constraints possess some special properties, it is possible to cast the task of finding nearest neighbor as a sparse recovery problem. Assuming generic random models for the dataset, we show that it is possible to store super-polynomial or exponential number of n-length vectors in a neural network of size O(n). Furthermore, given a noisy version of one of the stored vectors corrupted in near-linear number of coordinates, the vector can be correctly recalled using a neurally feasible algorithm.