We present a novel energy-based numerical analysis of semilinear diffusion-reaction boundary value problems. Based on a suitable variational setting, the proposed computational scheme can be seen as an energy minimisation approach. More specifically, this procedure aims to generate a sequence of numerical approximations, which results from the iterative solution of related (stabilised) linearised discrete problems, and tends to a local minimum of the underlying energy functional. Simultaneously, the finite-dimensional approximation spaces are adaptively refined; this is implemented in terms of a new mesh refinement strategy in the context of finite element discretisations, which again relies on the energy structure of the problem under consideration, and does not involve any a posteriori error indicators. In combination, the resulting adaptive algorithm consists of an iterative linearisation procedure on a sequence of hierarchically refined discrete spaces, which we prove to converge towards a solution of the continuous problem in an appropriate sense. Numerical experiments demonstrate the robustness and reliability of our approach for a series of examples.
We consider the Cauchy problem for the Helmholtz equation with a domain in R^d, d>2 with N cylindrical outlets to infinity with bounded inclusions in R^{d-1}. Cauchy data are prescribed on the boundary of the bounded domains and the aim is to find solution on the unbounded part of the boundary. In 1989, Kozlov and Maz'ya proposed an alternating iterative method for solving Cauchy problems associated with elliptic,self-adjoint and positive-definite operators in bounded domains. Different variants of this method for solving Cauchy problems associated with Helmholtz-type operators exists. We consider the variant proposed by Mpinganzima et al. for bounded domains and derive the necessary conditions for the convergence of the procedure in unbounded domains. For the numerical implementation, a finite difference method is used to solve the problem in a simple rectangular domain in R^2 that represent a truncated infinite strip. The numerical results shows that by appropriate truncation of the domain and with appropriate choice of the Robin parameters, the Robin-Dirichlet alternating iterative procedure is convergent.
Two novel parallel Newton-Krylov Balancing Domain Decomposition by Constraints (BDDC) and Dual-Primal Finite Element Tearing and Interconnecting (FETI-DP) solvers are here constructed, analyzed and tested numerically for implicit time discretizations of the three-dimensional Bidomain system of equations. This model represents the most advanced mathematical description of the cardiac bioelectrical activity and it consists of a degenerate system of two non-linear reaction-diffusion partial differential equations (PDEs), coupled with a stiff system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs). A finite element discretization in space and a segregated implicit discretization in time, based on decoupling the PDEs from the ODEs, yields at each time step the solution of a non-linear algebraic system. The Jacobian linear system at each Newton iteration is solved by a Krylov method, accelerated by BDDC or FETI-DP preconditioners, both augmented with the recently introduced {\em deluxe} scaling of the dual variables. A polylogarithmic convergence rate bound is proven for the resulting parallel Bidomain solvers. Extensive numerical experiments on linux clusters up to two thousands processors confirm the theoretical estimates, showing that the proposed parallel solvers are scalable and quasi-optimal.
We study reinforcement learning for two-player zero-sum Markov games with simultaneous moves in the finite-horizon setting, where the transition kernel of the underlying Markov games can be parameterized by a linear function over the current state, both players' actions and the next state. In particular, we assume that we can control both players and aim to find the Nash Equilibrium by minimizing the duality gap. We propose an algorithm Nash-UCRL based on the principle "Optimism-in-Face-of-Uncertainty". Our algorithm only needs to find a Coarse Correlated Equilibrium (CCE), which is computationally efficient. Specifically, we show that Nash-UCRL can provably achieve an $\tilde{O}(dH\sqrt{T})$ regret, where $d$ is the linear function dimension, $H$ is the length of the game and $T$ is the total number of steps in the game. To assess the optimality of our algorithm, we also prove an $\tilde{\Omega}( dH\sqrt{T})$ lower bound on the regret. Our upper bound matches the lower bound up to logarithmic factors, which suggests the optimality of our algorithm.
In this paper we get error bounds for fully discrete approximations of infinite horizon problems via the dynamic programming approach. It is well known that considering a time discretization with a positive step size $h$ an error bound of size $h$ can be proved for the difference between the value function (viscosity solution of the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation corresponding to the infinite horizon) and the value function of the discrete time problem. However, including also a spatial discretization based on elements of size $k$ an error bound of size $O(k/h)$ can be found in the literature for the error between the value functions of the continuous problem and the fully discrete problem. In this paper we revise the error bound of the fully discrete method and prove, under similar assumptions to those of the time discrete case, that the error of the fully discrete case is in fact $O(h+k)$ which gives first order in time and space for the method. This error bound matches the numerical experiments of many papers in the literature in which the behaviour $1/h$ from the bound $O(k/h)$ have not been observed.
The problem of continuous inverse optimal control (over finite time horizon) is to learn the unknown cost function over the sequence of continuous control variables from expert demonstrations. In this article, we study this fundamental problem in the framework of energy-based model, where the observed expert trajectories are assumed to be random samples from a probability density function defined as the exponential of the negative cost function up to a normalizing constant. The parameters of the cost function are learned by maximum likelihood via an "analysis by synthesis" scheme, which iterates (1) synthesis step: sample the synthesized trajectories from the current probability density using the Langevin dynamics via back-propagation through time, and (2) analysis step: update the model parameters based on the statistical difference between the synthesized trajectories and the observed trajectories. Given the fact that an efficient optimization algorithm is usually available for an optimal control problem, we also consider a convenient approximation of the above learning method, where we replace the sampling in the synthesis step by optimization. Moreover, to make the sampling or optimization more efficient, we propose to train the energy-based model simultaneously with a top-down trajectory generator via cooperative learning, where the trajectory generator is used to fast initialize the synthesis step of the energy-based model. We demonstrate the proposed methods on autonomous driving tasks, and show that they can learn suitable cost functions for optimal control.
Linear mixed models (LMMs) are instrumental for regression analysis with structured dependence, such as grouped, clustered, or multilevel data. However, selection among the covariates--while accounting for this structured dependence--remains a challenge. We introduce a Bayesian decision analysis for subset selection with LMMs. Using a Mahalanobis loss function that incorporates the structured dependence, we derive optimal linear coefficients for (i) any given subset of variables and (ii) all subsets of variables that satisfy a cardinality constraint. Crucially, these estimates inherit shrinkage or regularization and uncertainty quantification from the underlying Bayesian model, and apply for any well-specified Bayesian LMM. More broadly, our decision analysis strategy deemphasizes the role of a single "best" subset, which is often unstable and limited in its information content, and instead favors a collection of near-optimal subsets. This collection is summarized by key member subsets and variable-specific importance metrics. Customized subset search and out-of-sample approximation algorithms are provided for more scalable computing. These tools are applied to simulated data and a longitudinal physical activity dataset, and demonstrate excellent prediction, estimation, and selection ability.
We provide a decision theoretic analysis of bandit experiments. The setting corresponds to a dynamic programming problem, but solving this directly is typically infeasible. Working within the framework of diffusion asymptotics, we define suitable notions of asymptotic Bayes and minimax risk for bandit experiments. For normally distributed rewards, the minimal Bayes risk can be characterized as the solution to a nonlinear second-order partial differential equation (PDE). Using a limit of experiments approach, we show that this PDE characterization also holds asymptotically under both parametric and non-parametric distribution of the rewards. The approach further describes the state variables it is asymptotically sufficient to restrict attention to, and therefore suggests a practical strategy for dimension reduction. The upshot is that we can approximate the dynamic programming problem defining the bandit experiment with a PDE which can be efficiently solved using sparse matrix routines. We derive the optimal Bayes and minimax policies from the numerical solutions to these equations. The proposed policies substantially dominate existing methods such as Thompson sampling. The framework also allows for substantial generalizations to the bandit problem such as time discounting and pure exploration motives.
We study the numerical approximation by space-time finite element methods of a multi-physics system coupling hyperbolic elastodynamics with parabolic transport and modelling poro- and thermoelasticity. The equations are rewritten as a first-order system in time. Discretizations by continuous Galerkin methods in space and time with inf-sup stable pairs of finite elements for the spatial approximation of the unknowns are investigated. Optimal order error estimates of energy-type are proven. Superconvergence at the time nodes is addressed briefly. The error analysis can be extended to discontinuous and enriched Galerkin space discretizations. The error estimates are confirmed by numerical experiments.
Convection-diffusion-reaction equations model the conservation of scalar quantities. From the analytic point of view, solution of these equations satisfy under certain conditions maximum principles, which represent physical bounds of the solution. That the same bounds are respected by numerical approximations of the solution is often of utmost importance in practice. The mathematical formulation of this property, which contributes to the physical consistency of a method, is called Discrete Maximum Principle (DMP). In many applications, convection dominates diffusion by several orders of magnitude. It is well known that standard discretizations typically do not satisfy the DMP in this convection-dominated regime. In fact, in this case, it turns out to be a challenging problem to construct discretizations that, on the one hand, respect the DMP and, on the other hand, compute accurate solutions. This paper presents a survey on finite element methods, with a main focus on the convection-dominated regime, that satisfy a local or a global DMP. The concepts of the underlying numerical analysis are discussed. The survey reveals that for the steady-state problem there are only a few discretizations, all of them nonlinear, that at the same time satisfy the DMP and compute reasonably accurate solutions, e.g., algebraically stabilized schemes. Moreover, most of these discretizations have been developed in recent years, showing the enormous progress that has been achieved lately. Methods based on algebraic stabilization, nonlinear and linear ones, are currently as well the only finite element methods that combine the satisfaction of the global DMP and accurate numerical results for the evolutionary equations in the convection-dominated situation.
The minimum energy path (MEP) describes the mechanism of reaction, and the energy barrier along the path can be used to calculate the reaction rate in thermal systems. The nudged elastic band (NEB) method is one of the most commonly used schemes to compute MEPs numerically. It approximates an MEP by a discrete set of configuration images, where the discretization size determines both computational cost and accuracy of the simulations. In this paper, we consider a discrete MEP to be a stationary state of the NEB method and prove an optimal convergence rate of the discrete MEP with respect to the number of images. Numerical simulations for the transitions of some several proto-typical model systems are performed to support the theory.