Experiments at the High-Luminosity LHC and the Future Circular Collider need efficient algorithms to reconstruct granular events expected at such detectors with high fidelity. We study scalable machine learning models for event reconstruction in electron-positron collisions based on a full detector simulation. Particle-flow reconstruction can be formulated as a supervised learning task using tracks and calorimeter clusters. We compare a graph neural network and kernel-based transformer and demonstrate that we can avoid quadratic operations while achieving realistic reconstruction. We show that hyperparameter tuning significantly improves the performance of the models. The best graph neural network model shows improvement in the jet transverse momentum resolution by up to 50% compared to the rule-based algorithm. Accurate reconstruction can significantly improve future measurements at colliders. The resulting model is portable across Nvidia, AMD and Habana hardware. Our datasets and software are published following the findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable principles.
The consistency of the maximum likelihood estimator for mixtures of elliptically-symmetric distributions for estimating its population version is shown, where the underlying distribution $P$ is nonparametric and does not necessarily belong to the class of mixtures on which the estimator is based. In a situation where $P$ is a mixture of well enough separated but nonparametric distributions it is shown that the components of the population version of the estimator correspond to the well separated components of $P$. This provides some theoretical justification for the use of such estimators for cluster analysis in case that $P$ has well separated subpopulations even if these subpopulations differ from what the mixture model assumes.
Mendelian randomization is an instrumental variable method that utilizes genetic information to investigate the causal effect of a modifiable exposure on an outcome. In most cases, the exposure changes over time. Understanding the time-varying causal effect of the exposure can yield detailed insights into mechanistic effects and the potential impact of public health interventions. Recently, a growing number of Mendelian randomization studies have attempted to explore time-varying causal effects. However, the proposed approaches oversimplify temporal information and rely on overly restrictive structural assumptions, limiting their reliability in addressing time-varying causal problems. This paper considers a novel approach to estimate time-varying effects through continuous-time modelling by combining functional principal component analysis and weak-instrument-robust techniques. Our method effectively utilizes available data without making strong structural assumptions and can be applied in general settings where the exposure measurements occur at different timepoints for different individuals. We demonstrate through simulations that our proposed method performs well in estimating time-varying effects and provides reliable inference results when the time-varying effect form is correctly specified. The method could theoretically be used to estimate arbitrarily complex time-varying effects. However, there is a trade-off between model complexity and instrument strength. Estimating complex time-varying effects requires instruments that are unrealistically strong. We illustrate the application of this method in a case study examining the time-varying effects of systolic blood pressure on urea levels.
Multi-contrast (MC) Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) reconstruction aims to incorporate a reference image of auxiliary modality to guide the reconstruction process of the target modality. Known MC reconstruction methods perform well with a fully sampled reference image, but usually exhibit inferior performance, compared to single-contrast (SC) methods, when the reference image is missing or of low quality. To address this issue, we propose DuDoUniNeXt, a unified dual-domain MRI reconstruction network that can accommodate to scenarios involving absent, low-quality, and high-quality reference images. DuDoUniNeXt adopts a hybrid backbone that combines CNN and ViT, enabling specific adjustment of image domain and k-space reconstruction. Specifically, an adaptive coarse-to-fine feature fusion module (AdaC2F) is devised to dynamically process the information from reference images of varying qualities. Besides, a partially shared shallow feature extractor (PaSS) is proposed, which uses shared and distinct parameters to handle consistent and discrepancy information among contrasts. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model surpasses state-of-the-art SC and MC models significantly. Ablation studies show the effectiveness of the proposed hybrid backbone, AdaC2F, PaSS, and the dual-domain unified learning scheme.
Robust Markov Decision Processes (RMDPs) are a widely used framework for sequential decision-making under parameter uncertainty. RMDPs have been extensively studied when the objective is to maximize the discounted return, but little is known for average optimality (optimizing the long-run average of the rewards obtained over time) and Blackwell optimality (remaining discount optimal for all discount factors sufficiently close to 1). In this paper, we prove several foundational results for RMDPs beyond the discounted return. We show that average optimal policies can be chosen stationary and deterministic for sa-rectangular RMDPs but, perhaps surprisingly, that history-dependent (Markovian) policies strictly outperform stationary policies for average optimality in s-rectangular RMDPs. We also study Blackwell optimality for sa-rectangular RMDPs, where we show that {\em approximate} Blackwell optimal policies always exist, although Blackwell optimal policies may not exist. We also provide a sufficient condition for their existence, which encompasses virtually any examples from the literature. We then discuss the connection between average and Blackwell optimality, and we describe several algorithms to compute the optimal average return. Interestingly, our approach leverages the connections between RMDPs and stochastic games.
One of the main challenges for interpreting black-box models is the ability to uniquely decompose square-integrable functions of non-independent random inputs into a sum of functions of every possible subset of variables. However, dealing with dependencies among inputs can be complicated. We propose a novel framework to study this problem, linking three domains of mathematics: probability theory, functional analysis, and combinatorics. We show that, under two reasonable assumptions on the inputs (non-perfect functional dependence and non-degenerate stochastic dependence), it is always possible to decompose such a function uniquely. This generalizes the well-known Hoeffding decomposition. The elements of this decomposition can be expressed using oblique projections and allow for novel interpretability indices for evaluation and variance decomposition purposes. The properties of these novel indices are studied and discussed. This generalization offers a path towards a more precise uncertainty quantification, which can benefit sensitivity analysis and interpretability studies whenever the inputs are dependent. This decomposition is illustrated analytically, and the challenges for adopting these results in practice are discussed.
We present a new methodology for decomposing flows with multiple transports that further extends the shifted proper orthogonal decomposition (sPOD). The sPOD tries to approximate transport-dominated flows by a sum of co-moving data fields. The proposed methods stem from sPOD but optimize the co-moving fields directly and penalize their nuclear norm to promote low rank of the individual data in the decomposition. Furthermore, we add a robustness term to the decomposition that can deal with interpolation error and data noises. Leveraging tools from convex optimization, we derive three proximal algorithms to solve the decomposition problem. We report a numerical comparison with existing methods against synthetic data benchmarks and then show the separation ability of our methods on 1D and 2D incompressible and reactive flows. The resulting methodology is the basis of a new analysis paradigm that results in the same interpretability as the POD for the individual co-moving fields.
The minimum covariance determinant (MCD) estimator is a popular method for robustly estimating the mean and covariance of multivariate data. We extend the MCD to the setting where the observations are matrices rather than vectors and introduce the matrix minimum covariance determinant (MMCD) estimators for robust parameter estimation. These estimators hold equivariance properties, achieve a high breakdown point, and are consistent under elliptical matrix-variate distributions. We have also developed an efficient algorithm with convergence guarantees to compute the MMCD estimators. Using the MMCD estimators, we can compute robust Mahalanobis distances that can be used for outlier detection. Those distances can be decomposed into outlyingness contributions from each cell, row, or column of a matrix-variate observation using Shapley values, a concept for outlier explanation recently introduced in the multivariate setting. Simulations and examples reveal the excellent properties and usefulness of the robust estimators.
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.
This work explores the dimension reduction problem for Bayesian nonparametric regression and density estimation. More precisely, we are interested in estimating a functional parameter $f$ over the unit ball in $\mathbb{R}^d$, which depends only on a $d_0$-dimensional subspace of $\mathbb{R}^d$, with $d_0 < d$.It is well-known that rescaled Gaussian process priors over the function space achieve smoothness adaptation and posterior contraction with near minimax-optimal rates. Moreover, hierarchical extensions of this approach, equipped with subspace projection, can also adapt to the intrinsic dimension $d_0$ (\cite{Tokdar2011DimensionAdapt}).When the ambient dimension $d$ does not vary with $n$, the minimax rate remains of the order $n^{-\beta/(2\beta +d_0)}$.%When $d$ does not vary with $n$, the order of the minimax rate remains the same regardless of the ambient dimension $d$. However, this is up to multiplicative constants that can become prohibitively large when $d$ grows. The dependences between the contraction rate and the ambient dimension have not been fully explored yet and this work provides a first insight: we let the dimension $d$ grow with $n$ and, by combining the arguments of \cite{Tokdar2011DimensionAdapt} and \cite{Jiang2021VariableSelection}, we derive a growth rate for $d$ that still leads to posterior consistency with minimax rate.The optimality of this growth rate is then discussed.Additionally, we provide a set of assumptions under which consistent estimation of $f$ leads to a correct estimation of the subspace projection, assuming that $d_0$ is known.
A component-splitting method is proposed to improve convergence characteristics for implicit time integration of compressible multicomponent reactive flows. The characteristic decomposition of flux jacobian of multicomponent Navier-Stokes equations yields a large sparse eigensystem, presenting challenges of slow convergence and high computational costs for implicit methods. To addresses this issue, the component-splitting method segregates the implicit operator into two parts: one for the flow equations (density/momentum/energy) and the other for the component equations. Each part's implicit operator employs flux-vector splitting based on their respective spectral radii to achieve accelerated convergence. This approach improves the computational efficiency of implicit iteration, mitigating the quadratic increase in time cost with the number of species. Two consistence corrections are developed to reduce the introduced component-splitting error and ensure the numerical consistency of mass fraction. Importantly, the impact of component-splitting method on accuracy is minimal as the residual approaches convergence. The accuracy, efficiency, and robustness of component-splitting method are thoroughly investigated and compared with the coupled implicit scheme through several numerical cases involving thermo-chemical nonequilibrium hypersonic flows. The results demonstrate that the component-splitting method decreases the required number of iteration steps for convergence of residual and wall heat flux, decreases the computation time per iteration step, and diminishes the residual to lower magnitude. The acceleration efficiency is enhanced with increases in CFL number and number of species.