We investigate the complexity of several manipulation and control problems under numerous prevalent approval-based multiwinner voting rules. Particularly, the rules we study include approval voting (AV), satisfaction approval voting (SAV), net-satisfaction approval voting (NSAV), proportional approval voting (PAV), approval-based Chamberlin-Courant voting (ABCCV), minimax approval voting (MAV), etc. We show that these rules generally resist the strategic types scrutinized in the paper, with only a few exceptions. In addition, we also obtain many fixed-parameter tractability results for these problems with respect to several natural parameters, and derive polynomial-time algorithms for certain special cases.
We propose a novel non-negative spherical relaxation for optimization problems over binary matrices with injectivity constraints, which in particular has applications in multi-matching and clustering. We relax respective binary matrix constraints to the (high-dimensional) non-negative sphere. To optimize our relaxed problem, we use a conditional power iteration method to iteratively improve the objective function, while at same time sweeping over a continuous scalar parameter that is (indirectly) related to the universe size (or number of clusters). Opposed to existing procedures that require to fix the integer universe size before optimization, our method automatically adjusts the analogous continuous parameter. Furthermore, while our approach shares similarities with spectral multi-matching and spectral clustering, our formulation has the strong advantage that we do not rely on additional post-processing procedures to obtain binary results. Our method shows compelling results in various multi-matching and clustering settings, even when compared to methods that use the ground truth universe size (or number of clusters).
We introduce two new stochastic conjugate frameworks for a class of nonconvex and possibly also nonsmooth optimization problems. These frameworks are built upon Stochastic Recursive Gradient Algorithm (SARAH) and we thus refer to them as Acc-Prox-CG-SARAH and Acc-Prox-CG-SARAH-RS, respectively. They are efficiently accelerated, easy to implement, tune free and can be smoothly extended and modified. We devise a deterministic restart scheme for stochastic optimization and apply it in our second stochastic conjugate framework, which serves the key difference between the two approaches. In addition, we apply the ProbAbilistic Gradient Estimator (PAGE) and further develop a practical variant, denoted as Acc-Prox-CG-SARAH-ST, in order to reduce potential computational overhead. We provide comprehensive and rigorous convergence analysis for all three approaches and establish linear convergence rates for unconstrained minimization problem with nonconvex and nonsmooth objective functions. Experiments have demonstrated that Acc-Prox-CG-SARAH and Acc-Prox-CG-SARAH-RS both outperform state-of-art methods consistently and Acc-Prox-CG-SARAH-ST can as well achieve comparable convergence speed. In terms of theory and experiments, we verify the strong computational efficiency of the deterministic restart scheme in stochastic optimization methods.
We commonly encounter the problem of identifying an optimally weight adjusted version of the empirical distribution of observed data, adhering to predefined constraints on the weights. Such constraints often manifest as restrictions on the moments, tail behaviour, shapes, number of modes, etc., of the resulting weight adjusted empirical distribution. In this article, we substantially enhance the flexibility of such methodology by introducing a nonparametrically imbued distributional constraints on the weights, and developing a general framework leveraging the maximum entropy principle and tools from optimal transport. The key idea is to ensure that the maximum entropy weight adjusted empirical distribution of the observed data is close to a pre-specified probability distribution in terms of the optimal transport metric while allowing for subtle departures. The versatility of the framework is demonstrated in the context of three disparate applications where data re-weighting is warranted to satisfy side constraints on the optimization problem at the heart of the statistical task: namely, portfolio allocation, semi-parametric inference for complex surveys, and ensuring algorithmic fairness in machine learning algorithms.
Behavioural metrics provide a quantitative refinement of classical two-valued behavioural equivalences on systems with quantitative data, such as metric or probabilistic transition systems. In analogy to the linear-time/branching-time spectrum of two-valued behavioural equivalences on transition systems, behavioural metrics vary in granularity. We provide a unifying treatment of spectra of behavioural metrics in the emerging framework of graded monads, working in coalgebraic generality, that is, parametrically in the system type. In the ensuing development of quantitative graded semantics, we introduce algebraic presentations of graded monads on the category of metric spaces. Moreover, we obtain a canonical generic notion of invariant real-valued modal logic, and provide criteria for such logics to be expressive in the sense that logical distance coincides with behavioural distance. We present positive examples based on this criterion, covering both known and new expressiveness results; in particular, we show that expressiveness holds essentially always for Eilenberg-Moore type trace semantics, and we obtain a new expressiveness result for trace semantics of fuzzy transition systems. As a negative result, we show that trace distance on probabilistic metric transition systems does not admit any characteristic real-valued modal logic, even in a more broadly understood sense.
Robotic manipulation can greatly benefit from the data efficiency, robustness, and predictability of model-based methods if robots can quickly generate models of novel objects they encounter. This is especially difficult when effects like complex joint friction lack clear first-principles models and are usually ignored by physics simulators. Further, numerically-stiff contact dynamics can make common model-building approaches struggle. We propose a method to simultaneously learn contact and continuous dynamics of a novel, possibly multi-link object by observing its motion through contact-rich trajectories. We formulate a system identification process with a loss that infers unmeasured contact forces, penalizing their violation of physical constraints and laws of motion given current model parameters. Our loss is unlike prediction-based losses used in differentiable simulation. Using a new dataset of real articulated object trajectories and an existing cube toss dataset, our method outperforms differentiable simulation and end-to-end alternatives with more data efficiency. See our project page for code, datasets, and media: //sites.google.com/view/continuous-contact-nets/home
Explainable recommender systems (RS) have traditionally followed a one-size-fits-all approach, delivering the same explanation level of detail to each user, without considering their individual needs and goals. Further, explanations in RS have so far been presented mostly in a static and non-interactive manner. To fill these research gaps, we aim in this paper to adopt a user-centered, interactive explanation model that provides explanations with different levels of detail and empowers users to interact with, control, and personalize the explanations based on their needs and preferences. We followed a user-centered approach to design interactive explanations with three levels of detail (basic, intermediate, and advanced) and implemented them in the transparent Recommendation and Interest Modeling Application (RIMA). We conducted a qualitative user study (N=14) to investigate the impact of providing interactive explanations with varying level of details on the users' perception of the explainable RS. Our study showed qualitative evidence that fostering interaction and giving users control in deciding which explanation they would like to see can meet the demands of users with different needs, preferences, and goals, and consequently can have positive effects on different crucial aspects in explainable recommendation, including transparency, trust, satisfaction, and user experience.
We investigate the randomized and quantum communication complexities of the well-studied Equality function with small error probability $\epsilon$, getting optimal constant factors in the leading terms in a number of different models. In the randomized model, 1) we give a general technique to convert public-coin protocols to private-coin protocols by incurring a small multiplicative error, at a small additive cost. This is an improvement over Newman's theorem [Inf. Proc. Let.'91] in the dependence on the error parameter. 2) Using this we obtain a $(\log(n/\epsilon^2)+4)$-cost private-coin communication protocol that computes the $n$-bit Equality function, to error $\epsilon$. This improves upon the $\log(n/\epsilon^3)+O(1)$ upper bound implied by Newman's theorem, and matches the best known lower bound, which follows from Alon [Comb. Prob. Comput.'09], up to an additive $\log\log(1/\epsilon)+O(1)$. In the quantum model, 1) we exhibit a one-way protocol of cost $\log(n/\epsilon)+4$, that uses only pure states and computes the $n$-bit Equality function to error $\epsilon$. This bound was implicitly already shown by Nayak [PhD thesis'99]. 2) We show that any $\epsilon$-error one-way protocol for $n$-bit Equality that uses only pure states communicates at least $\log(n/\epsilon)-\log\log(1/\epsilon)-O(1)$ qubits. 3) We exhibit a one-way protocol of cost $\log(\sqrt{n}/\epsilon)+3$, that uses mixed states and computes the $n$-bit Equality function to error $\epsilon$. This is also tight up to an additive $\log\log(1/\epsilon)+O(1)$, which follows from Alon's result. 4) We study the number of EPR pairs required to be shared in an entanglement-assisted one-way protocol. Our upper bounds also yield upper bounds on the approximate rank and related measures of the Identity matrix.
We propose a dependence-aware predictive modeling framework for multivariate risks stemmed from an insurance contract with bundling features - an important type of policy increasingly offered by major insurance companies. The bundling feature naturally leads to longitudinal measurements of multiple insurance risks, and correct pricing and management of such risks is of fundamental interest to financial stability of the macroeconomy. We build a novel predictive model that fully captures the dependence among the multivariate repeated risk measurements. Specifically, the longitudinal measurement of each individual risk is first modeled using pair copula construction with a D-vine structure, and the multiple D-vines are then integrated by a flexible copula. The proposed model provides a unified modeling framework for multivariate longitudinal data that can accommodate different scales of measurements, including continuous, discrete, and mixed observations, and thus can be potentially useful for various economic studies. A computationally efficient sequential method is proposed for model estimation and inference, and its performance is investigated both theoretically and via simulation studies. In the application, we examine multivariate bundled risks in multi-peril property insurance using proprietary data from a commercial property insurance provider. The proposed model is found to provide improved decision making for several key insurance operations. For underwriting, we show that the experience rate priced by the proposed model leads to a 9% lift in the insurer's net revenue. For reinsurance, we show that the insurer underestimates the risk of the retained insurance portfolio by 10% when ignoring the dependence among bundled insurance risks.
This work considers the question of how convenient access to copious data impacts our ability to learn causal effects and relations. In what ways is learning causality in the era of big data different from -- or the same as -- the traditional one? To answer this question, this survey provides a comprehensive and structured review of both traditional and frontier methods in learning causality and relations along with the connections between causality and machine learning. This work points out on a case-by-case basis how big data facilitates, complicates, or motivates each approach.
We introduce a multi-task setup of identifying and classifying entities, relations, and coreference clusters in scientific articles. We create SciERC, a dataset that includes annotations for all three tasks and develop a unified framework called Scientific Information Extractor (SciIE) for with shared span representations. The multi-task setup reduces cascading errors between tasks and leverages cross-sentence relations through coreference links. Experiments show that our multi-task model outperforms previous models in scientific information extraction without using any domain-specific features. We further show that the framework supports construction of a scientific knowledge graph, which we use to analyze information in scientific literature.