This work explores the degree to which grammar acquisition is driven by language `simplicity' and the source modality (speech vs. text) of data. Using BabyBERTa as a probe, we find that grammar acquisition is largely driven by exposure to speech data, and in particular through exposure to two of the BabyLM training corpora: AO-Childes and Open Subtitles. We arrive at this finding by examining various ways of presenting input data to our model. First, we assess the impact of various sequence-level complexity based curricula. We then examine the impact of learning over `blocks' -- covering spans of text that are balanced for the number of tokens in each of the source corpora (rather than number of lines). Finally, we explore curricula that vary the degree to which the model is exposed to different corpora. In all cases, we find that over-exposure to AO-Childes and Open Subtitles significantly drives performance. We verify these findings through a comparable control dataset in which exposure to these corpora, and speech more generally, is limited by design. Our findings indicate that it is not the proportion of tokens occupied by high-utility data that aids acquisition, but rather the proportion of training steps assigned to such data. We hope this encourages future research into the use of more developmentally plausible linguistic data (which tends to be more scarce) to augment general purpose pre-training regimes.
One of the pivotal tasks in scientific machine learning is to represent underlying dynamical systems from time series data. Many methods for such dynamics learning explicitly require the derivatives of state data, which are not directly available and can be approximated conventionally by finite differences. However, the discrete approximations of time derivatives may result in a poor estimation when state data are scarce and/or corrupted by noise, thus compromising the predictiveness of the learned dynamical models. To overcome this technical hurdle, we propose a new method that learns nonlinear dynamics through a Bayesian inference of characterizing model parameters. This method leverages a Gaussian process representation of states, and constructs a likelihood function using the correlation between state data and their derivatives, yet prevents explicit evaluations of time derivatives. Through a Bayesian scheme, a probabilistic estimate of the model parameters is given by the posterior distribution, and thus a quantification is facilitated for uncertainties from noisy state data and the learning process. Specifically, we will discuss the applicability of the proposed method to two typical scenarios for dynamical systems: parameter identification and estimation with an affine structure of the system, and nonlinear parametric approximation without prior knowledge.
We introduce a new technique called Drapes to enhance the sensitivity in searches for new physics at the LHC. By training diffusion models on side-band data, we show how background templates for the signal region can be generated either directly from noise, or by partially applying the diffusion process to existing data. In the partial diffusion case, data can be drawn from side-band regions, with the inverse diffusion performed for new target conditional values, or from the signal region, preserving the distribution over the conditional property that defines the signal region. We apply this technique to the hunt for resonances using the LHCO di-jet dataset, and achieve state-of-the-art performance for background template generation using high level input features. We also show how Drapes can be applied to low level inputs with jet constituents, reducing the model dependence on the choice of input observables. Using jet constituents we can further improve sensitivity to the signal process, but observe a loss in performance where the signal significance before applying any selection is below 4$\sigma$.
A primary challenge of physics-informed machine learning (PIML) is its generalization beyond the training domain, especially when dealing with complex physical problems represented by partial differential equations (PDEs). This paper aims to enhance the generalization capabilities of PIML, facilitating practical, real-world applications where accurate predictions in unexplored regions are crucial. We leverage the inherent causality and temporal sequential characteristics of PDE solutions to fuse PIML models with recurrent neural architectures based on systems of ordinary differential equations, referred to as neural oscillators. Through effectively capturing long-time dependencies and mitigating the exploding and vanishing gradient problem, neural oscillators foster improved generalization in PIML tasks. Extensive experimentation involving time-dependent nonlinear PDEs and biharmonic beam equations demonstrates the efficacy of the proposed approach. Incorporating neural oscillators outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods on benchmark problems across various metrics. Consequently, the proposed method improves the generalization capabilities of PIML, providing accurate solutions for extrapolation and prediction beyond the training data.
Substantial efforts have been made in developing various Decision Modeling formalisms, both from industry and academia. A challenging problem is that of expressing decision knowledge in the context of incomplete knowledge. In such contexts, decisions depend on what is known or not known. We argue that none of the existing formalisms for modeling decisions are capable of correctly capturing the epistemic nature of such decisions, inevitably causing issues in situations of uncertainty. This paper presents a new language for modeling decisions with incomplete knowledge. It combines three principles: stratification, autoepistemic logic, and definitions. A knowledge base in this language is a hierarchy of epistemic theories, where each component theory may epistemically reason on the knowledge in lower theories, and decisions are made using definitions with epistemic conditions.
We revisit the general framework introduced by Fazylab et al. (SIAM J. Optim. 28, 2018) to construct Lyapunov functions for optimization algorithms in discrete and continuous time. For smooth, strongly convex objective functions, we relax the requirements necessary for such a construction. As a result we are able to prove for Polyak's ordinary differential equations and for a two-parameter family of Nesterov algorithms rates of convergence that improve on those available in the literature. We analyse the interpretation of Nesterov algorithms as discretizations of the Polyak equation. We show that the algorithms are instances of Additive Runge-Kutta integrators and discuss the reasons why most discretizations of the differential equation do not result in optimization algorithms with acceleration. We also introduce a modification of Polyak's equation and study its convergence properties. Finally we extend the general framework to the stochastic scenario and consider an application to random algorithms with acceleration for overparameterized models; again we are able to prove convergence rates that improve on those in the literature.
By incorporating a new matrix splitting and the momentum acceleration into the relaxed-based matrix splitting (RMS) method \cite{soso2023}, a generalization of the RMS (GRMS) iterative method for solving the generalized absolute value equations (GAVEs) is proposed. Unlike some existing methods, by using the Cauchy's convergence principle, we give some sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of the solution to the GAVEs and prove that our method can converge to the unique solution of the GAVEs. Moreover, we can obtain a few new and weaker convergence conditions for some existing methods. Preliminary numerical experiments show that the proposed method is efficient.
Federated learning for training models over mobile devices is gaining popularity. Current systems for this task exhibit significant trade-offs between model accuracy, privacy guarantee, and device efficiency. For instance, Oort (OSDI 2021) provides excellent accuracy and efficiency but requires a trusted central server. On the other hand, Orchard (OSDI 2020) provides good accuracy and the rigorous guarantee of differential privacy over an untrusted server, but creates huge overhead for the devices. This paper describes Aero, a new federated learning system that significantly improves this trade-off. Aero guarantees good accuracy, differential privacy over an untrusted server, and keeps the device overhead low. The key idea of Aero is to tune system architecture and design to a specific set of popular, federated learning algorithms. This tuning requires novel optimizations and techniques, e.g., a new protocol to securely aggregate updates from devices. An evaluation of Aero demonstrates that it provides comparable accuracy to plain federated learning (without differential privacy), and it improves efficiency (CPU and network) over Orchard by up to $10^5\times$.
In this article, we study nonparametric inference for a covariate-adjusted regression function. This parameter captures the average association between a continuous exposure and an outcome after adjusting for other covariates. In particular, under certain causal conditions, this parameter corresponds to the average outcome had all units been assigned to a specific exposure level, known as the causal dose-response curve. We propose a debiased local linear estimator of the covariate-adjusted regression function, and demonstrate that our estimator converges pointwise to a mean-zero normal limit distribution. We use this result to construct asymptotically valid confidence intervals for function values and differences thereof. In addition, we use approximation results for the distribution of the supremum of an empirical process to construct asymptotically valid uniform confidence bands. Our methods do not require undersmoothing, permit the use of data-adaptive estimators of nuisance functions, and our estimator attains the optimal rate of convergence for a twice differentiable function. We illustrate the practical performance of our estimator using numerical studies and an analysis of the effect of air pollution exposure on cardiovascular mortality.
This paper launches a thorough discussion on the locality of local neural operator (LNO), which is the core that enables LNO great flexibility on varied computational domains in solving transient partial differential equations (PDEs). We investigate the locality of LNO by looking into its receptive field and receptive range, carrying a main concern about how the locality acts in LNO training and applications. In a large group of LNO training experiments for learning fluid dynamics, it is found that an initial receptive range compatible with the learning task is crucial for LNO to perform well. On the one hand, an over-small receptive range is fatal and usually leads LNO to numerical oscillation; on the other hand, an over-large receptive range hinders LNO from achieving the best accuracy. We deem rules found in this paper general when applying LNO to learn and solve transient PDEs in diverse fields. Practical examples of applying the pre-trained LNOs in flow prediction are presented to confirm the findings further. Overall, with the architecture properly designed with a compatible receptive range, the pre-trained LNO shows commendable accuracy and efficiency in solving practical cases.
With the increasing demand of intelligent systems capable of operating in different contexts (e.g. users on the move) the correct interpretation of the user-need by such systems has become crucial to give consistent answers to the user questions. The most effective applications addressing such task are in the fields of natural language processing and semantic expansion of terms. These techniques are aimed at estimating the goal of an input query reformulating it as an intent, commonly relying on textual resources built exploiting different semantic relations like \emph{synonymy}, \emph{antonymy} and many others. The aim of this paper is to generate such resources using the labels of a given taxonomy as source of information. The obtained resources are integrated into a plain classifier for reformulating a set of input queries as intents and tracking the effect of each relation, in order to quantify the impact of each semantic relation on the classification. As an extension to this, the best tradeoff between improvement and noise introduction when combining such relations is evaluated. The assessment is made generating the resources and their combinations and using them for tuning the classifier which is used to reformulate the user questions as labels. The evaluation employs a wide and varied taxonomy as a use-case, exploiting its labels as basis for the semantic expansion and producing several corpora with the purpose of enhancing the pseudo-queries estimation.