Classic cycle-joining techniques have found widespread application in creating universal cycles for a diverse range of combinatorial objects, such as shorthand permutations, weak orders, orientable sequences, and various subsets of $k$-ary strings, including de Bruijn sequences. In the most favorable scenarios, these algorithms operate with a space complexity of $O(n)$ and require $O(n)$ time to generate each symbol in the sequences. In contrast, concatenation-based methods have been developed for a limited selection of universal cycles. In each of these instances, the universal cycles can be generated far more efficiently, with an amortized time complexity of $O(1)$ per symbol, while still using $O(n)$ space. This paper introduces $\mathit{concatenation~trees}$, which serve as the fundamental structures needed to bridge the gap between cycle-joining constructions based on the pure cycle register and corresponding concatenation-based approaches. They immediately demystify the relationship between the classic Lyndon word concatenation construction of de Bruijn sequences and a corresponding cycle-joining based construction. To underscore their significance, concatenation trees are applied to construct universal cycles for shorthand permutations and weak orders in $O(1)$-amortized time per symbol. Moreover, we provide insights as to how similar results can be obtained for other universal cycles including cut-down de Bruijn sequences and orientable sequences.
The interpretability of models has become a crucial issue in Machine Learning because of algorithmic decisions' growing impact on real-world applications. Tree ensemble methods, such as Random Forests or XgBoost, are powerful learning tools for classification tasks. However, while combining multiple trees may provide higher prediction quality than a single one, it sacrifices the interpretability property resulting in "black-box" models. In light of this, we aim to develop an interpretable representation of a tree-ensemble model that can provide valuable insights into its behavior. First, given a target tree-ensemble model, we develop a hierarchical visualization tool based on a heatmap representation of the forest's feature use, considering the frequency of a feature and the level at which it is selected as an indicator of importance. Next, we propose a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) formulation for constructing a single optimal multivariate tree that accurately mimics the target model predictions. The goal is to provide an interpretable surrogate model based on oblique hyperplane splits, which uses only the most relevant features according to the defined forest's importance indicators. The MILP model includes a penalty on feature selection based on their frequency in the forest to further induce sparsity of the splits. The natural formulation has been strengthened to improve the computational performance of {mixed-integer} software. Computational experience is carried out on benchmark datasets from the UCI repository using a state-of-the-art off-the-shelf solver. Results show that the proposed model is effective in yielding a shallow interpretable tree approximating the tree-ensemble decision function.
Multivariate spatio-temporal models are widely applicable, but specifying their structure is complicated and may inhibit wider use. We introduce the R package tinyVAST from two viewpoints: the software user and the statistician. From the user viewpoint, tinyVAST adapts a widely used formula interface to specify generalized additive models, and combines this with arguments to specify spatial and spatio-temporal interactions among variables. These interactions are specified using arrow notation (from structural equation models), or an extended arrow-and-lag notation that allows simultaneous, lagged, and recursive dependencies among variables over time. The user also specifies a spatial domain for areal (gridded), continuous (point-count), or stream-network data. From the statistician viewpoint, tinyVAST constructs sparse precision matrices representing multivariate spatio-temporal variation, and parameters are estimated by specifying a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM). This expressive interface encompasses vector autoregressive, empirical orthogonal functions, spatial factor analysis, and ARIMA models. To demonstrate, we fit to data from two survey platforms sampling corals, sponges, rockfishes, and flatfishes in the Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands. We then compare eight alternative model structures using different assumptions about habitat drivers and survey detectability. Model selection suggests that towed-camera and bottom trawl gears have spatial variation in detectability but sample the same underlying density of flatfishes and rockfishes, and that rockfishes are positively associated with sponges while flatfishes are negatively associated with corals. We conclude that tinyVAST can be used to test complicated dependencies representing alternative structural assumptions for research and real-world policy evaluation.
While deep neural networks have achieved remarkable performance, data augmentation has emerged as a crucial strategy to mitigate overfitting and enhance network performance. These techniques hold particular significance in industrial manufacturing contexts. Recently, image mixing-based methods have been introduced, exhibiting improved performance on public benchmark datasets. However, their application to industrial tasks remains challenging. The manufacturing environment generates massive amounts of unlabeled data on a daily basis, with only a few instances of abnormal data occurrences. This leads to severe data imbalance. Thus, creating well-balanced datasets is not straightforward due to the high costs associated with labeling. Nonetheless, this is a crucial step for enhancing productivity. For this reason, we introduce ContextMix, a method tailored for industrial applications and benchmark datasets. ContextMix generates novel data by resizing entire images and integrating them into other images within the batch. This approach enables our method to learn discriminative features based on varying sizes from resized images and train informative secondary features for object recognition using occluded images. With the minimal additional computation cost of image resizing, ContextMix enhances performance compared to existing augmentation techniques. We evaluate its effectiveness across classification, detection, and segmentation tasks using various network architectures on public benchmark datasets. Our proposed method demonstrates improved results across a range of robustness tasks. Its efficacy in real industrial environments is particularly noteworthy, as demonstrated using the passive component dataset.
In this paper we develop a linear expectile hidden Markov model for the analysis of cryptocurrency time series in a risk management framework. The methodology proposed allows to focus on extreme returns and describe their temporal evolution by introducing in the model time-dependent coefficients evolving according to a latent discrete homogeneous Markov chain. As it is often used in the expectile literature, estimation of the model parameters is based on the asymmetric normal distribution. Maximum likelihood estimates are obtained via an Expectation-Maximization algorithm using efficient M-step update formulas for all parameters. We evaluate the introduced method with both artificial data under several experimental settings and real data investigating the relationship between daily Bitcoin returns and major world market indices.
Digital-analog quantum computing (DAQC) is an alternative paradigm for universal quantum computation combining digital single-qubit gates with global analog operations acting on a register of interacting qubits. Currently, no available open-source software is tailored to express, differentiate, and execute programs within the DAQC paradigm. In this work, we address this shortfall by presenting Qadence, a high-level programming interface for building complex digital-analog quantum programs developed at Pasqal. Thanks to its flexible interface, native differentiability, and focus on real-device execution, Qadence aims at advancing research on variational quantum algorithms built for native DAQC platforms such as Rydberg atom arrays.
The rise of AI in human contexts places new demands on automated systems to be transparent and explainable. We examine some anthropomorphic ideas and principles relevant to such accountablity in order to develop a theoretical framework for thinking about digital systems in complex human contexts and the problem of explaining their behaviour. Structurally, systems are made of modular and hierachical components, which we abstract in a new system model using notions of modes and mode transitions. A mode is an independent component of the system with its own objectives, monitoring data, and algorithms. The behaviour of a mode, including its transitions to other modes, is determined by functions that interpret each mode's monitoring data in the light of its objectives and algorithms. We show how these belief functions can help explain system behaviour by visualising their evaluation as trajectories in higher-dimensional geometric spaces. These ideas are formalised mathematically by abstract and concrete simplicial complexes. We offer three techniques: a framework for design heuristics, a general system theory based on modes, and a geometric visualisation, and apply them in three types of human-centred systems.
We initiate the study of Boolean function analysis on high-dimensional expanders. We give a random-walk based definition of high-dimensional expansion, which coincides with the earlier definition in terms of two-sided link expanders. Using this definition, we describe an analog of the Fourier expansion and the Fourier levels of the Boolean hypercube for simplicial complexes. Our analog is a decomposition into approximate eigenspaces of random walks associated with the simplicial complexes. Our random-walk definition and the decomposition have the additional advantage that they extend to the more general setting of posets, encompassing both high-dimensional expanders and the Grassmann poset, which appears in recent work on the unique games conjecture. We then use this decomposition to extend the Friedgut-Kalai-Naor theorem to high-dimensional expanders. Our results demonstrate that a constant-degree high-dimensional expander can sometimes serve as a sparse model for the Boolean slice or hypercube, and quite possibly additional results from Boolean function analysis can be carried over to this sparse model. Therefore, this model can be viewed as a derandomization of the Boolean slice, containing only $|X(k-1)|=O(n)$ points in contrast to $\binom{n}{k}$ points in the $(k)$-slice (which consists of all $n$-bit strings with exactly $k$ ones).
The present work deals with the numerical resolution of coupled 3D-2D problems arising from the simulation of fluid flow in fractured porous media modeled via the Discrete Fracture and Matrix (DFM) model. According to the DFM model, fractures are represented as planar interfaces immersed in a 3D porous matrix and can behave as preferential flow paths, in the case of conductive fractures, or can actually be a barrier for the flow, when, instead, the permeability in the normal-to-fracture direction is small compared to the permeability of the matrix. Consequently, the pressure solution in a DFM can be discontinuous across a barrier, as a result of the geometrical dimensional reduction operated on the fracture. The present work is aimed at developing a numerical scheme suitable for the simulation of the flow in a DFM with fractures and barriers, using a mesh for the 3D matrix non conforming to the fractures and that is ready for domain decomposition. This is achieved starting from a PDE-constrained optimization method, currently available in literature only for conductive fractures in a DFM. First, a novel formulation of the optimization problem is defined to account for non permeable fractures. These are described by a filtration-like coupling at the interface with the surrounding porous matrix. Also the extended finite element method with discontinuous enrichment functions is used to reproduce the pressure solution in the matrix around a barrier. The method is presented here in its simplest form, for clarity of exposition, i.e. considering the case of a single fracture in a 3D domain, also providing a proof of the well posedness of the resulting discrete problem. Four validation examples are proposed to show the viability and the effectiveness of the method.
We develop a numerical method for computing with orthogonal polynomials that are orthogonal on multiple, disjoint intervals for which analytical formulae are currently unknown. Our approach exploits the Fokas--Its--Kitaev Riemann--Hilbert representation of the orthogonal polynomials to produce an $\mathrm{O}(N)$ method to compute the first $N$ recurrence coefficients. The method can also be used for pointwise evaluation of the polynomials and their Cauchy transforms throughout the complex plane. The method encodes the singularity behavior of weight functions using weighted Cauchy integrals of Chebyshev polynomials. This greatly improves the efficiency of the method, outperforming other available techniques. We demonstrate the fast convergence of our method and present applications to integrable systems and approximation theory.
Artificial neural networks thrive in solving the classification problem for a particular rigid task, acquiring knowledge through generalized learning behaviour from a distinct training phase. The resulting network resembles a static entity of knowledge, with endeavours to extend this knowledge without targeting the original task resulting in a catastrophic forgetting. Continual learning shifts this paradigm towards networks that can continually accumulate knowledge over different tasks without the need to retrain from scratch. We focus on task incremental classification, where tasks arrive sequentially and are delineated by clear boundaries. Our main contributions concern 1) a taxonomy and extensive overview of the state-of-the-art, 2) a novel framework to continually determine the stability-plasticity trade-off of the continual learner, 3) a comprehensive experimental comparison of 11 state-of-the-art continual learning methods and 4 baselines. We empirically scrutinize method strengths and weaknesses on three benchmarks, considering Tiny Imagenet and large-scale unbalanced iNaturalist and a sequence of recognition datasets. We study the influence of model capacity, weight decay and dropout regularization, and the order in which the tasks are presented, and qualitatively compare methods in terms of required memory, computation time, and storage.