This study develops a computationally efficient phase-field lattice Boltzmann model with the capability to simulate thermocapillary flows. The model was implemented into the open-source simulation framework, waLBerla, and extended to conduct the collision stage using central moments. The multiphase model was coupled with both a passive-scalar thermal LB, and a RK solution to the energy equation in order to resolve temperature-dependent surface tension phenomena. Various lattice stencils (D3Q7, D3Q15, D3Q19, D3Q27) were tested for the passive-scalar LB and both the second- and fourth-order RK methods were investigated. There was no significant difference observed in the accuracy of the LB or RK schemes. The passive scalar D3Q7 LB discretisation tended to provide computational benefits, while the second order RK scheme is superior in memory usage. This paper makes contributions relating to the modelling of thermocapillary flows and to understanding the behaviour of droplet capture with thermal sources analogous to thermal tweezers. Four primary contributions to the literature are identified. First, a new 3D thermocapillary, central-moment phase-field LB model is presented and implemented in the open-source software, waLBerla. Second, the accuracy and computational performance of various techniques to resolve the energy equation for multiphase, incompressible fluids is investigated. Third, the dynamic droplet transport behaviour in the presence of thermal sources is studied and insight is provided on the potential ability to manipulate droplets based on local domain heating. Finally, a concise analysis of the computational performance together with near-perfect scaling results on NVIDIA and AMD GPU-clusters is shown. This research enables the detailed study of droplet manipulation and control in thermocapillary devices.
The ability to dynamically adjust the computational load of neural models during inference is crucial for on-device processing scenarios characterised by limited and time-varying computational resources. A promising solution is presented by early-exit architectures, in which additional exit branches are appended to intermediate layers of the encoder. In self-attention models for automatic speech recognition (ASR), early-exit architectures enable the development of dynamic models capable of adapting their size and architecture to varying levels of computational resources and ASR performance demands. Previous research on early-exiting ASR models has relied on pre-trained self-supervised models, fine-tuned with an early-exit loss. In this paper, we undertake an experimental comparison between fine-tuning pre-trained backbones and training models from scratch with the early-exiting objective. Experiments conducted on public datasets reveal that early-exit models trained from scratch not only preserve performance when using fewer encoder layers but also exhibit enhanced task accuracy compared to single-exit or pre-trained models. Furthermore, we explore an exit selection strategy grounded in posterior probabilities as an alternative to the conventional frame-based entropy approach. Results provide insights into the training dynamics of early-exit architectures for ASR models, particularly the efficacy of training strategies and exit selection methods.
Vessel segmentation and centerline extraction are two crucial preliminary tasks for many computer-aided diagnosis tools dealing with vascular diseases. Recently, deep-learning based methods have been widely applied to these tasks. However, classic deep-learning approaches struggle to capture the complex geometry and specific topology of vascular networks, which is of the utmost importance in most applications. To overcome these limitations, the clDice loss, a topological loss that focuses on the vessel centerlines, has been recently proposed. This loss requires computing, with a proposed soft-skeleton algorithm, the skeletons of both the ground truth and the predicted segmentation. However, the soft-skeleton algorithm provides suboptimal results on 3D images, which makes the clDice hardly suitable on 3D images. In this paper, we propose to replace the soft-skeleton algorithm by a U-Net which computes the vascular skeleton directly from the segmentation. We show that our method provides more accurate skeletons than the soft-skeleton algorithm. We then build upon this network a cascaded U-Net trained with the clDice loss to embed topological constraints during the segmentation. The resulting model is able to predict both the vessel segmentation and centerlines with a more accurate topology.
Several mixed-effects models for longitudinal data have been proposed to accommodate the non-linearity of late-life cognitive trajectories and assess the putative influence of covariates on it. No prior research provides a side-by-side examination of these models to offer guidance on their proper application and interpretation. In this work, we examined five statistical approaches previously used to answer research questions related to non-linear changes in cognitive aging: the linear mixed model (LMM) with a quadratic term, LMM with splines, the functional mixed model, the piecewise linear mixed model, and the sigmoidal mixed model. We first theoretically describe the models. Next, using data from two prospective cohorts with annual cognitive testing, we compared the interpretation of the models by investigating associations of education on cognitive change before death. Lastly, we performed a simulation study to empirically evaluate the models and provide practical recommendations. Except for the LMM-quadratic, the fit of all models was generally adequate to capture non-linearity of cognitive change and models were relatively robust. Although spline-based models have no interpretable nonlinearity parameters, their convergence was easier to achieve, and they allow graphical interpretation. In contrast, piecewise and sigmoidal models, with interpretable non-linear parameters, may require more data to achieve convergence.
We study the performance of stochastic first-order methods for finding saddle points of convex-concave functions. A notorious challenge faced by such methods is that the gradients can grow arbitrarily large during optimization, which may result in instability and divergence. In this paper, we propose a simple and effective regularization technique that stabilizes the iterates and yields meaningful performance guarantees even if the domain and the gradient noise scales linearly with the size of the iterates (and is thus potentially unbounded). Besides providing a set of general results, we also apply our algorithm to a specific problem in reinforcement learning, where it leads to performance guarantees for finding near-optimal policies in an average-reward MDP without prior knowledge of the bias span.
The scale function holds significant importance within the fluctuation theory of Levy processes, particularly in addressing exit problems. However, its definition is established through the Laplace transform, thereby lacking explicit representations in general. This paper introduces a novel series representation for this scale function, employing Laguerre polynomials to construct a uniformly convergent approximate sequence. Additionally, we derive statistical inference based on specific discrete observations, presenting estimators of scale functions that are asymptotically normal.
Hybrid modeling integrates machine learning with scientific knowledge with the goal of enhancing interpretability, generalization, and adherence to natural laws. Nevertheless, equifinality and regularization biases pose challenges in hybrid modeling to achieve these purposes. This paper introduces a novel approach to estimating hybrid models via a causal inference framework, specifically employing Double Machine Learning (DML) to estimate causal effects. We showcase its use for the Earth sciences on two problems related to carbon dioxide fluxes. In the $Q_{10}$ model, we demonstrate that DML-based hybrid modeling is superior in estimating causal parameters over end-to-end deep neural network (DNN) approaches, proving efficiency, robustness to bias from regularization methods, and circumventing equifinality. Our approach, applied to carbon flux partitioning, exhibits flexibility in accommodating heterogeneous causal effects. The study emphasizes the necessity of explicitly defining causal graphs and relationships, advocating for this as a general best practice. We encourage the continued exploration of causality in hybrid models for more interpretable and trustworthy results in knowledge-guided machine learning.
We study the problem of guaranteeing Differential Privacy (DP) in hyper-parameter tuning, a crucial process in machine learning involving the selection of the best run from several. Unlike many private algorithms, including the prevalent DP-SGD, the privacy implications of tuning remain insufficiently understood. Recent works propose a generic private solution for the tuning process, yet a fundamental question still persists: is the current privacy bound for this solution tight? This paper contributes both positive and negative answers to this question. Initially, we provide studies affirming the current privacy analysis is indeed tight in a general sense. However, when we specifically study the hyper-parameter tuning problem, such tightness no longer holds. This is first demonstrated by applying privacy audit on the tuning process. Our findings underscore a substantial gap between the current theoretical privacy bound and the empirical bound derived even under the strongest audit setup. The gap found is not a fluke. Our subsequent study provides an improved privacy result for private hyper-parameter tuning due to its distinct properties. Our privacy results are also more generalizable compared to prior analyses that are only easily applicable in specific setups.
The ability to extract material parameters of perovskite from quantitative experimental analysis is essential for rational design of photovoltaic and optoelectronic applications. However, the difficulty of this analysis increases significantly with the complexity of the theoretical model and the number of material parameters for perovskite. Here we use Bayesian optimization to develop an analysis platform that can extract up to 8 fundamental material parameters of an organometallic perovskite semiconductor from a transient photoluminescence experiment, based on a complex full physics model that includes drift-diffusion of carriers and dynamic defect occupation. An example study of thermal degradation reveals that changes in doping concentration and carrier mobility dominate, while the defect energy level remains nearly unchanged. This platform can be conveniently applied to other experiments or to combinations of experiments, accelerating materials discovery and optimization of semiconductor materials for photovoltaics and other applications.
We solve fluid flow problems through a space-time finite element method. The weak form of the Navier-Stokes equations is stabilized using the variational multi-scale formulation. The finite element problem is posed on the "full" space-time domain, considering time as another dimension. We apply this method on two benchmark problems in computational fluid dynamics, namely, lid-driven cavity flow and flow past a circular cylinder. We validate the current method with existing results from literature and show that very large space-time blocks can be solved using our approach.
Graph representation learning for hypergraphs can be used to extract patterns among higher-order interactions that are critically important in many real world problems. Current approaches designed for hypergraphs, however, are unable to handle different types of hypergraphs and are typically not generic for various learning tasks. Indeed, models that can predict variable-sized heterogeneous hyperedges have not been available. Here we develop a new self-attention based graph neural network called Hyper-SAGNN applicable to homogeneous and heterogeneous hypergraphs with variable hyperedge sizes. We perform extensive evaluations on multiple datasets, including four benchmark network datasets and two single-cell Hi-C datasets in genomics. We demonstrate that Hyper-SAGNN significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on traditional tasks while also achieving great performance on a new task called outsider identification. Hyper-SAGNN will be useful for graph representation learning to uncover complex higher-order interactions in different applications.