Sparse model identification enables nonlinear dynamical system discovery from data. However, the control of false discoveries for sparse model identification is challenging, especially in the low-data and high-noise limit. In this paper, we perform a theoretical study on ensemble sparse model discovery, which shows empirical success in terms of accuracy and robustness to noise. In particular, we analyse the bootstrapping-based sequential thresholding least-squares estimator. We show that this bootstrapping-based ensembling technique can perform a provably correct variable selection procedure with an exponential convergence rate of the error rate. In addition, we show that the ensemble sparse model discovery method can perform computationally efficient uncertainty estimation, compared to expensive Bayesian uncertainty quantification methods via MCMC. We demonstrate the convergence properties and connection to uncertainty quantification in various numerical studies on synthetic sparse linear regression and sparse model discovery. The experiments on sparse linear regression support that the bootstrapping-based sequential thresholding least-squares method has better performance for sparse variable selection compared to LASSO, thresholding least-squares, and bootstrapping-based LASSO. In the sparse model discovery experiment, we show that the bootstrapping-based sequential thresholding least-squares method can provide valid uncertainty quantification, converging to a delta measure centered around the true value with increased sample sizes. Finally, we highlight the improved robustness to hyperparameter selection under shifting noise and sparsity levels of the bootstrapping-based sequential thresholding least-squares method compared to other sparse regression methods.
Estimating the entropy rate of discrete time series is a challenging problem with important applications in numerous areas including neuroscience, genomics, image processing and natural language processing. A number of approaches have been developed for this task, typically based either on universal data compression algorithms, or on statistical estimators of the underlying process distribution. In this work, we propose a fully-Bayesian approach for entropy estimation. Building on the recently introduced Bayesian Context Trees (BCT) framework for modelling discrete time series as variable-memory Markov chains, we show that it is possible to sample directly from the induced posterior on the entropy rate. This can be used to estimate the entire posterior distribution, providing much richer information than point estimates. We develop theoretical results for the posterior distribution of the entropy rate, including proofs of consistency and asymptotic normality. The practical utility of the method is illustrated on both simulated and real-world data, where it is found to outperform state-of-the-art alternatives.
In complex large-scale systems such as climate, important effects are caused by a combination of confounding processes that are not fully observable. The identification of sources from observations of system state is vital for attribution and prediction, which inform critical policy decisions. The difficulty of these types of inverse problems lies in the inability to isolate sources and the cost of simulating computational models. Surrogate models may enable the many-query algorithms required for source identification, but data challenges arise from high dimensionality of the state and source, limited ensembles of costly model simulations to train a surrogate model, and few and potentially noisy state observations for inversion due to measurement limitations. The influence of auxiliary processes adds an additional layer of uncertainty that further confounds source identification. We introduce a framework based on (1) calibrating deep neural network surrogates to the flow maps provided by an ensemble of simulations obtained by varying sources, and (2) using these surrogates in a Bayesian framework to identify sources from observations via optimization. Focusing on an atmospheric dispersion exemplar, we find that the expressive and computationally efficient nature of the deep neural network operator surrogates in appropriately reduced dimension allows for source identification with uncertainty quantification using limited data. Introducing a variable wind field as an auxiliary process, we find that a Bayesian approximation error approach is essential for reliable source inversion when uncertainty due to wind stresses the algorithm.
We revisit the Bayesian Context Trees (BCT) modelling framework for discrete time series, which was recently found to be very effective in numerous tasks including model selection, estimation and prediction. A novel representation of the induced posterior distribution on model space is derived in terms of a simple branching process, and several consequences of this are explored in theory and in practice. First, it is shown that the branching process representation leads to a simple variable-dimensional Monte Carlo sampler for the joint posterior distribution on models and parameters, which can efficiently produce independent samples. This sampler is found to be more efficient than earlier MCMC samplers for the same tasks. Then, the branching process representation is used to establish the asymptotic consistency of the BCT posterior, including the derivation of an almost-sure convergence rate. Finally, an extensive study is carried out on the performance of the induced Bayesian entropy estimator. Its utility is illustrated through both simulation experiments and real-world applications, where it is found to outperform several state-of-the-art methods.
We present an extension of the linear sampling method for solving the sound-soft inverse acoustic scattering problem with randomly distributed point sources. The theoretical justification of our sampling method is based on the Helmholtz--Kirchhoff identity, the cross-correlation between measurements, and the volume and imaginary near-field operators, which we introduce and analyze. Implementations in MATLAB using boundary elements, the SVD, Tikhonov regularization, and Morozov's discrepancy principle are also discussed. We demonstrate the robustness and accuracy of our algorithms with several numerical experiments in two dimensions.
Real engineering and scientific applications often involve one or more qualitative inputs. Standard Gaussian processes (GPs), however, cannot directly accommodate qualitative inputs. The recently introduced latent variable Gaussian process (LVGP) overcomes this issue by first mapping each qualitative factor to underlying latent variables (LVs), and then uses any standard GP covariance function over these LVs. The LVs are estimated similarly to the other GP hyperparameters through maximum likelihood estimation, and then plugged into the prediction expressions. However, this plug-in approach will not account for uncertainty in estimation of the LVs, which can be significant especially with limited training data. In this work, we develop a fully Bayesian approach for the LVGP model and for visualizing the effects of the qualitative inputs via their LVs. We also develop approximations for scaling up LVGPs and fully Bayesian inference for the LVGP hyperparameters. We conduct numerical studies comparing plug-in inference against fully Bayesian inference over a few engineering models and material design applications. In contrast to previous studies on standard GP modeling that have largely concluded that a fully Bayesian treatment offers limited improvements, our results show that for LVGP modeling it offers significant improvements in prediction accuracy and uncertainty quantification over the plug-in approach.
In the design of wireless receivers, DNNs can be combined with traditional model-based receiver algorithms to realize modular hybrid model-based/data-driven architectures that can account for domain knowledge. Such architectures typically include multiple modules, each carrying out a different functionality. Conventionally trained DNN-based modules are known to produce poorly calibrated, typically overconfident, decisions. This implies that an incorrect decision may propagate through the architecture without any indication of its insufficient accuracy. To address this problem, we present a novel combination of Bayesian learning with hybrid model-based/data-driven architectures for wireless receiver design. The proposed methodology, referred to as modular model-based Bayesian learning, results in better calibrated modules, improving accuracy and calibration of the overall receiver. We demonstrate this approach for the recently proposed DeepSIC MIMO receiver, showing significant improvements with respect to the state-of-the-art learning methods.
Likelihood-based inferences have been remarkably successful in wide-spanning application areas. However, even after due diligence in selecting a good model for the data at hand, there is inevitably some amount of model misspecification: outliers, data contamination or inappropriate parametric assumptions such as Gaussianity mean that most models are at best rough approximations of reality. A significant practical concern is that for certain inferences, even small amounts of model misspecification may have a substantial impact; a problem we refer to as brittleness. This article attempts to address the brittleness problem in likelihood-based inferences by choosing the most model friendly data generating process in a discrepancy-based neighbourhood of the empirical measure. This leads to a new Optimistically Weighted Likelihood (OWL), which robustifies the original likelihood by formally accounting for a small amount of model misspecification. Focusing on total variation (TV) neighborhoods, we study theoretical properties, develop inference algorithms and illustrate the methodology in applications to mixture models and regression.
We consider network games where a large number of agents interact according to a network sampled from a random network model, represented by a graphon. By exploiting previous results on convergence of such large network games to graphon games, we examine a procedure for estimating unknown payoff parameters, from observations of equilibrium actions, without the need for exact network information. We prove smoothness and local convexity of the optimization problem involved in computing the proposed estimator. Additionally, under a notion of graphon parameter identifiability, we show that the optimal estimator is globally unique. We present several examples of identifiable homogeneous and heterogeneous parameters in different classes of linear quadratic network games with numerical simulations to validate the proposed estimator.
The Bayesian paradigm has the potential to solve core issues of deep neural networks such as poor calibration and data inefficiency. Alas, scaling Bayesian inference to large weight spaces often requires restrictive approximations. In this work, we show that it suffices to perform inference over a small subset of model weights in order to obtain accurate predictive posteriors. The other weights are kept as point estimates. This subnetwork inference framework enables us to use expressive, otherwise intractable, posterior approximations over such subsets. In particular, we implement subnetwork linearized Laplace: We first obtain a MAP estimate of all weights and then infer a full-covariance Gaussian posterior over a subnetwork. We propose a subnetwork selection strategy that aims to maximally preserve the model's predictive uncertainty. Empirically, our approach is effective compared to ensembles and less expressive posterior approximations over full networks.
Ensembles over neural network weights trained from different random initialization, known as deep ensembles, achieve state-of-the-art accuracy and calibration. The recently introduced batch ensembles provide a drop-in replacement that is more parameter efficient. In this paper, we design ensembles not only over weights, but over hyperparameters to improve the state of the art in both settings. For best performance independent of budget, we propose hyper-deep ensembles, a simple procedure that involves a random search over different hyperparameters, themselves stratified across multiple random initializations. Its strong performance highlights the benefit of combining models with both weight and hyperparameter diversity. We further propose a parameter efficient version, hyper-batch ensembles, which builds on the layer structure of batch ensembles and self-tuning networks. The computational and memory costs of our method are notably lower than typical ensembles. On image classification tasks, with MLP, LeNet, and Wide ResNet 28-10 architectures, our methodology improves upon both deep and batch ensembles.