geneo
Reconstruction of SINR Maps from Sparse Measurements using Group Equivariant Non-Expansive Operators
Amorosa, Lorenzo Mario, Conti, Francesco, Quercioli, Nicola, Zabini, Flavio, Mahyari, Tayebeh Lotfi, Ge, Yiqun, Frosini, Patrizio
As sixth generation (6G) wireless networks evolve, accurate signal-to-interference-noise ratio (SINR) maps are becoming increasingly critical for effective resource management and optimization. However, acquiring such maps at high resolution is often cost-prohibitive, creating a severe data scarcity challenge. This necessitates machine learning (ML) approaches capable of robustly reconstructing the full map from extremely sparse measurements. To address this, we introduce a novel reconstruction framework based on Group Equivariant Non-Expansive Operators (GENEOs). Unlike data-hungry ML models, GENEOs are low-complexity operators that embed domain-specific geometric priors, such as translation invariance, directly into their structure. This provides a strong inductive bias, enabling effective reconstruction from very few samples. Our key insight is that for network management, preserving the topological structure of the SINR map, such as the geometry of coverage holes and interference patterns, is often more critical than minimizing pixel-wise error. We validate our approach on realistic ray-tracing-based urban scenarios, evaluating performance with both traditional statistical metrics (mean squared error (MSE)) and, crucially, a topological metric (1-Wasserstein distance). Results show that while maintaining competitive MSE, our method dramatically outperforms established ML baselines in topological fidelity. This demonstrates the practical advantage of GENEOs for creating structurally accurate SINR maps that are more reliable for downstream network optimization tasks.
Mathematical Foundation of Interpretable Equivariant Surrogate Models
Colombini, Jacopo Joy, Bonchi, Filippo, Giannini, Francesco, Giannotti, Fosca, Pellungrini, Roberto, Frosini, Patrizio
This paper introduces a rigorous mathematical framework for neural network explainability, and more broadly for the explainability of equivariant operators called Group Equivariant Operators (GEOs) based on Group Equivariant Non-Expansive Operators (GENEOs) transformations. The central concept involves quantifying the distance between GEOs by measuring the non-commutativity of specific diagrams. Additionally, the paper proposes a definition of interpretability of GEOs according to a complexity measure that can be defined according to each user preferences. Moreover, we explore the formal properties of this framework and show how it can be applied in classical machine learning scenarios, like image classification with convolutional neural networks.
A novel approach to graph distinction through GENEOs and permutants
Bocchi, Giovanni, Ferri, Massimo, Frosini, Patrizio
Explainable machine learning models have recently emerged as an important part of the research in artificial intelligence and aim at devising methods and techniques that are understandable for humans [26, 9, 18]. In this field, the use of concepts from topology and geometry has enabled developments that promise to make machine learning more easily interpretable, as required in many critical applications, where security and reliability are crucial elements. The research about group equivariant non-expansive operators (GENEOs) fits into this scientific context, offering the possibility of building small networks of operators that process the available information in a transparent and easily controllable way [5, 24, 7]. GENEOs have their roots in Topological Data Analysis and make available a mathematical theory for the approximation of observers, including their symmetries and shifting the attention from the data alone to the pairs (data, observer), seen as the main object of study. This change of perspective is justified by the fact that in many applications, the interest is not directly focused on data, but on approximating the experts' behavior in the presence of some given information [12]. It is indeed well known that different agents can react in completely different ways to the presence of the same data, and this implies that data comparison cannot be separated from the problem of understanding observers' characteristics and preferences.
On the geometric and Riemannian structure of the spaces of group equivariant non-expansive operators
Cascarano, Pasquale, Frosini, Patrizio, Quercioli, Nicola, Saki, Amir
Group equivariant non-expansive operators have been recently proposed as basic components in topological data analysis and deep learning. In this paper we study some geometric properties of the spaces of group equivariant operators and show how a space $\mathcal{F}$ of group equivariant non-expansive operators can be endowed with the structure of a Riemannian manifold, so making available the use of gradient descent methods for the minimization of cost functions on $\mathcal{F}$. As an application of this approach, we also describe a procedure to select a finite set of representative group equivariant non-expansive operators in the considered manifold.
Low-Resource White-Box Semantic Segmentation of Supporting Towers on 3D Point Clouds via Signature Shape Identification
Lavado, Diogo, Soares, Clรกudia, Micheletti, Alessandra, Bocchi, Giovanni, Coronati, Alex, Silva, Manuel, Frosini, Patrizio
Research in 3D semantic segmentation has been increasing performance metrics, like the IoU, by scaling model complexity and computational resources, leaving behind researchers and practitioners that (1) cannot access the necessary resources and (2) do need transparency on the model decision mechanisms. In this paper, we propose SCENE-Net, a low-resource white-box model for 3D point cloud semantic segmentation. SCENE-Net identifies signature shapes on the point cloud via group equivariant non-expansive operators (GENEOs), providing intrinsic geometric interpretability. Our training time on a laptop is 85~min, and our inference time is 20~ms. SCENE-Net has 11 trainable geometrical parameters and requires fewer data than black-box models. SCENE--Net offers robustness to noisy labeling and data imbalance and has comparable IoU to state-of-the-art methods. With this paper, we release a 40~000 Km labeled dataset of rural terrain point clouds and our code implementation.
Generalized Permutants and Graph GENEOs
Ahmad, Faraz, Ferri, Massimo, Frosini, Patrizio
In this paper we establish a bridge between Topological Data Analysis and Geometric Deep Learning, adapting the topological theory of group equivariant non-expansive operators (GENEOs) to act on the space of all graphs weighted on vertices or edges. This is done by showing how the general concept of GENEO can be used to transform graphs and to give information about their structure. This requires the introduction of the new concepts of generalized permutant and generalized permutant measure and the mathematical proof that these concepts allow us to build GENEOs between graphs. An experimental section concludes the paper, illustrating the possible use of our operators to extract information from graphs. This paper is part of a line of research devoted to developing a compositional and geometric theory of GENEOs for Geometric Deep Learning.
Towards a topologicalโgeometrical theory of group equivariant non-expansive operators for data analysis and machine learning
We provide a general mathematical framework for group and set equivariance in machine learning. We define group equivariant non-expansive operators (GENEOs) as maps between function spaces associated with groups of transformations. We study the topological and metric properties of the space of GENEOs to evaluate their approximating power and set the basis for general strategies to initialize and compose operators. We define suitable pseudo-metrics for the function spaces, the equivariance groups and the set of non-expansive operators. We prove that, under suitable assumptions, the space of GENEOs is compact and convex.
Towards a topological-geometrical theory of group equivariant non-expansive operators for data analysis and machine learning
Bergomi, Mattia G., Frosini, Patrizio, Giorgi, Daniela, Quercioli, Nicola
The aim of this paper is to provide a general mathematical framework for group equivariance in the machine learning context. The framework builds on a synergy between persistent homology and the theory of group actions. We define group-equivariant non-expansive operators (GENEOs), which are maps between function spaces associated with groups of transformations. We study the topological and metric properties of the space of GENEOs to evaluate their approximating power and set the basis for general strategies to initialise and compose operators. We begin by defining suitable pseudo-metrics for the function spaces, the equivariance groups, and the set of non-expansive operators. Basing on these pseudo-metrics, we prove that the space of GENEOs is compact and convex, under the assumption that the function spaces are compact and convex. These results provide fundamental guarantees in a machine learning perspective. We show examples on the MNIST and fashion-MNIST datasets. By considering isometry-equivariant non-expansive operators, we describe a simple strategy to select and sample operators, and show how the selected and sampled operators can be used to perform both classical metric learning and an effective initialisation of the kernels of a convolutional neural network.