We present a robust deep incremental learning framework for regression tasks on financial temporal tabular datasets which is built upon the incremental use of commonly available tabular and time series prediction models to adapt to distributional shifts typical of financial datasets. The framework uses a simple basic building block (decision trees) to build self-similar models of any required complexity to deliver robust performance under adverse situations such as regime changes, fat-tailed distributions, and low signal-to-noise ratios. As a detailed study, we demonstrate our scheme using XGBoost models trained on the Numerai dataset and show that a two layer deep ensemble of XGBoost models over different model snapshots delivers high quality predictions under different market regimes. We also show that the performance of XGBoost models with different number of boosting rounds in three scenarios (small, standard and large) is monotonically increasing with respect to model size and converges towards the generalisation upper bound. We also evaluate the robustness of the model under variability of different hyperparameters, such as model complexity and data sampling settings. Our model has low hardware requirements as no specialised neural architectures are used and each base model can be independently trained in parallel.
Expecting intelligent machines to efficiently work in real world requires a new method to understand unstructured information in unknown environments with good accuracy, scalability and generalization, like human. Here, a memristive neural computing based perceptual signal differential processing and learning method for intelligent machines is presented, via extracting main features of environmental information and applying associated encoded stimuli to memristors, we successfully obtain human-like ability in processing unstructured environmental information, such as amplification (>720%) and adaptation (<50%) of mechanical stimuli. The method also exhibits good scalability and generalization, validated in two typical applications of intelligent machines: object grasping and autonomous driving. In the former, a robot hand experimentally realizes safe and stable grasping, through learning unknown object features (e.g., sharp corner and smooth surface) with a single memristor in 1 ms. In the latter, the decision-making information of 10 unstructured environments in autonomous driving (e.g., overtaking cars, pedestrians) are accurately (94%) extracted with a 40x25 memristor array. By mimicking the intrinsic nature of human low-level perception mechanisms in electronic memristive neural circuits, the proposed method is adaptable to diverse sensing technologies, helping intelligent machines to generate smart high-level decisions in real world.
Branching process inspired models are widely used to estimate the effective reproduction number -- a useful summary statistic describing an infectious disease outbreak -- using counts of new cases. Case data is a real-time indicator of changes in the reproduction number, but is challenging to work with because cases fluctuate due to factors unrelated to the number of new infections. We develop a new model that incorporates the number of diagnostic tests as a surveillance model covariate. Using simulated data and data from the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in California, we demonstrate that incorporating tests leads to improved performance over the state-of-the-art.
Collaborative filtering (CF) has become a popular method for developing recommender systems (RSs) where ratings of a user for new items are predicted based on her past preferences and available preference information of other users. Despite the popularity of CF-based methods, their performance is often greatly limited by the sparsity of observed entries. In this study, we explore the data augmentation and refinement aspects of Maximum Margin Matrix Factorization (MMMF), a widely accepted CF technique for rating predictions, which has not been investigated before. We exploit the inherent characteristics of CF algorithms to assess the confidence level of individual ratings and propose a semi-supervised approach for rating augmentation based on self-training. We hypothesize that any CF algorithm's predictions with low confidence are due to some deficiency in the training data and hence, the performance of the algorithm can be improved by adopting a systematic data augmentation strategy. We iteratively use some of the ratings predicted with high confidence to augment the training data and remove low-confidence entries through a refinement process. By repeating this process, the system learns to improve prediction accuracy. Our method is experimentally evaluated on several state-of-the-art CF algorithms and leads to informative rating augmentation, improving the performance of the baseline approaches.
Data-driven algorithm design is a promising, learning-based approach for beyond worst-case analysis of algorithms with tunable parameters. An important open problem is the design of computationally efficient data-driven algorithms for combinatorial algorithm families with multiple parameters. As one fixes the problem instance and varies the parameters, the "dual" loss function typically has a piecewise-decomposable structure, i.e. is well-behaved except at certain sharp transition boundaries. In this work we initiate the study of techniques to develop efficient ERM learning algorithms for data-driven algorithm design by enumerating the pieces of the sum dual loss functions for a collection of problem instances. The running time of our approach scales with the actual number of pieces that appear as opposed to worst case upper bounds on the number of pieces. Our approach involves two novel ingredients -- an output-sensitive algorithm for enumerating polytopes induced by a set of hyperplanes using tools from computational geometry, and an execution graph which compactly represents all the states the algorithm could attain for all possible parameter values. We illustrate our techniques by giving algorithms for pricing problems, linkage-based clustering and dynamic-programming based sequence alignment.
The covXtreme software provides functionality for estimation of marginal and conditional extreme value models, non-stationary with respect to covariates, and environmental design contours. Generalised Pareto (GP) marginal models of peaks over threshold are estimated, using a piecewise-constant representation for the variation of GP threshold and scale parameters on the (potentially multidimensional) covariate domain of interest. The conditional variation of one or more associated variates, given a large value of a single conditioning variate, is described using the conditional extremes model of Heffernan and Tawn (2004), the slope term of which is also assumed to vary in a piecewise constant manner with covariates. Optimal smoothness of marginal and conditional extreme value model parameters with respect to covariates is estimated using cross-validated roughness-penalised maximum likelihood estimation. Uncertainties in model parameter estimates due to marginal and conditional extreme value threshold choice, and sample size, are quantified using a bootstrap resampling scheme. Estimates of environmental contours using various schemes, including the direct sampling approach of Huseby et al. 2013, are calculated by simulation or numerical integration under fitted models. The software was developed in MATLAB for metocean applications, but is applicable generally to multivariate samples of peaks over threshold. The software can be downloaded from GitHub, with an accompanying user guide.
Langevin dynamics are widely used in sampling high-dimensional, non-Gaussian distributions whose densities are known up to a normalizing constant. In particular, there is strong interest in unadjusted Langevin algorithms (ULA), which directly discretize Langevin dynamics to estimate expectations over the target distribution. We study the use of transport maps that approximately normalize a target distribution as a way to precondition and accelerate the convergence of Langevin dynamics. We show that in continuous time, when a transport map is applied to Langevin dynamics, the result is a Riemannian manifold Langevin dynamics (RMLD) with metric defined by the transport map. We also show that applying a transport map to an irreversibly-perturbed ULA results in a geometry-informed irreversible perturbation (GiIrr) of the original dynamics. These connections suggest more systematic ways of learning metrics and perturbations, and also yield alternative discretizations of the RMLD described by the map, which we study. Under appropriate conditions, these discretized processes can be endowed with non-asymptotic bounds describing convergence to the target distribution in 2-Wasserstein distance. Illustrative numerical results complement our theoretical claims.
We introduce the modified planar rotator method (MPRS), a physically inspired machine learning method for spatial/temporal regression. MPRS is a non-parametric model which incorporates spatial or temporal correlations via short-range, distance-dependent ``interactions'' without assuming a specific form for the underlying probability distribution. Predictions are obtained by means of a fully autonomous learning algorithm which employs equilibrium conditional Monte Carlo simulations. MPRS is able to handle scattered data and arbitrary spatial dimensions. We report tests on various synthetic and real-word data in one, two and three dimensions which demonstrate that the MPRS prediction performance (without parameter tuning) is competitive with standard interpolation methods such as ordinary kriging and inverse distance weighting. In particular, MPRS is a particularly effective gap-filling method for rough and non-Gaussian data (e.g., daily precipitation time series). MPRS shows superior computational efficiency and scalability for large samples. Massive data sets involving millions of nodes can be processed in a few seconds on a standard personal computer.
The accurate representation of precipitation in Earth system models (ESMs) is crucial for reliable projections of the ecological and socioeconomic impacts in response to anthropogenic global warming. The complex cross-scale interactions of processes that produce precipitation are challenging to model, however, inducing potentially strong biases in ESM fields, especially regarding extremes. State-of-the-art bias correction methods only address errors in the simulated frequency distributions locally at every individual grid cell. Improving unrealistic spatial patterns of the ESM output, which would require spatial context, has not been possible so far. Here, we show that a post-processing method based on physically constrained generative adversarial networks (cGANs) can correct biases of a state-of-the-art, CMIP6-class ESM both in local frequency distributions and in the spatial patterns at once. While our method improves local frequency distributions equally well as gold-standard bias-adjustment frameworks, it strongly outperforms any existing methods in the correction of spatial patterns, especially in terms of the characteristic spatial intermittency of precipitation extremes.
We derive information-theoretic generalization bounds for supervised learning algorithms based on the information contained in predictions rather than in the output of the training algorithm. These bounds improve over the existing information-theoretic bounds, are applicable to a wider range of algorithms, and solve two key challenges: (a) they give meaningful results for deterministic algorithms and (b) they are significantly easier to estimate. We show experimentally that the proposed bounds closely follow the generalization gap in practical scenarios for deep learning.
The remarkable practical success of deep learning has revealed some major surprises from a theoretical perspective. In particular, simple gradient methods easily find near-optimal solutions to non-convex optimization problems, and despite giving a near-perfect fit to training data without any explicit effort to control model complexity, these methods exhibit excellent predictive accuracy. We conjecture that specific principles underlie these phenomena: that overparametrization allows gradient methods to find interpolating solutions, that these methods implicitly impose regularization, and that overparametrization leads to benign overfitting. We survey recent theoretical progress that provides examples illustrating these principles in simpler settings. We first review classical uniform convergence results and why they fall short of explaining aspects of the behavior of deep learning methods. We give examples of implicit regularization in simple settings, where gradient methods lead to minimal norm functions that perfectly fit the training data. Then we review prediction methods that exhibit benign overfitting, focusing on regression problems with quadratic loss. For these methods, we can decompose the prediction rule into a simple component that is useful for prediction and a spiky component that is useful for overfitting but, in a favorable setting, does not harm prediction accuracy. We focus specifically on the linear regime for neural networks, where the network can be approximated by a linear model. In this regime, we demonstrate the success of gradient flow, and we consider benign overfitting with two-layer networks, giving an exact asymptotic analysis that precisely demonstrates the impact of overparametrization. We conclude by highlighting the key challenges that arise in extending these insights to realistic deep learning settings.