Networks serve as a tool used to examine the large-scale connectivity patterns in complex systems. Modelling their generative mechanism nonparametrically is often based on step-functions, such as the stochastic block models. These models are capable of addressing two prominent topics in network science: link prediction and community detection. However, such methods often have a resolution limit, making it difficult to separate small-scale structures from noise. To arrive at a smoother representation of the network's generative mechanism, we explicitly trade variance for bias by smoothing blocks of edges based on stochastic equivalence. As such, we propose a different estimation method using a new model, which we call the stochastic shape model. Typically, analysis methods are based on modelling node or link communities. In contrast, we take a hybrid approach, bridging the two notions of community. Consequently, we obtain a more parsimonious representation, enabling a more interpretable and multiscale summary of the network structure. By considering multiple resolutions, we trade bias and variance to ensure that our estimator is rate-optimal. We also examine the performance of our model through simulations and applications to real network data.
This paper revisits the classical concept of network modularity and its spectral relaxations used throughout graph data analysis. We formulate and study several modularity statistic variants for which we establish asymptotic distributional results in the large-network limit for networks exhibiting nodal community structure. Our work facilitates testing for network differences and can be used in conjunction with existing theoretical guarantees for stochastic blockmodel random graphs. Our results are enabled by recent advances in the study of low-rank truncations of large network adjacency matrices. We provide confirmatory simulation studies and real data analysis pertaining to the network neuroscience study of psychosis, specifically schizophrenia. Collectively, this paper contributes to the limited existing literature to date on statistical inference for modularity-based network analysis. Supplemental materials for this article are available online.
Randomized matrix algorithms have become workhorse tools in scientific computing and machine learning. To use these algorithms safely in applications, they should be coupled with posterior error estimates to assess the quality of the output. To meet this need, this paper proposes two diagnostics: a leave-one-out error estimator for randomized low-rank approximations and a jackknife resampling method to estimate the variance of the output of a randomized matrix computation. Both of these diagnostics are rapid to compute for randomized low-rank approximation algorithms such as the randomized SVD and randomized Nystr\"om approximation, and they provide useful information that can be used to assess the quality of the computed output and guide algorithmic parameter choices.
Living organisms interact with their surroundings in a closed-loop fashion, where sensory inputs dictate the initiation and termination of behaviours. Even simple animals are able to develop and execute complex plans, which has not yet been replicated in robotics using pure closed-loop input control. We propose a solution to this problem by defining a set of discrete and temporary closed-loop controllers, called "tasks", each representing a closed-loop behaviour. We further introduce a supervisory module which has an innate understanding of physics and causality, through which it can simulate the execution of task sequences over time and store the results in a model of the environment. On the basis of this model, plans can be made by chaining temporary closed-loop controllers. The proposed framework was implemented for a real robot and tested in two scenarios as proof of concept.
We present Surjective Sequential Neural Likelihood (SSNL) estimation, a novel method for simulation-based inference in models where the evaluation of the likelihood function is not tractable and only a simulator that can generate synthetic data is available. SSNL fits a dimensionality-reducing surjective normalizing flow model and uses it as a surrogate likelihood function which allows for conventional Bayesian inference using either Markov chain Monte Carlo methods or variational inference. By embedding the data in a low-dimensional space, SSNL solves several issues previous likelihood-based methods had when applied to high-dimensional data sets that, for instance, contain non-informative data dimensions or lie along a lower-dimensional manifold. We evaluate SSNL on a wide variety of experiments and show that it generally outperforms contemporary methods used in simulation-based inference, for instance, on a challenging real-world example from astrophysics which models the magnetic field strength of the sun using a solar dynamo model.
We propose a novel algorithm for the support estimation of partially known Gaussian graphical models that incorporates prior information about the underlying graph. In contrast to classical approaches that provide a point estimate based on a maximum likelihood or a maximum a posteriori criterion using (simple) priors on the precision matrix, we consider a prior on the graph and rely on annealed Langevin diffusion to generate samples from the posterior distribution. Since the Langevin sampler requires access to the score function of the underlying graph prior, we use graph neural networks to effectively estimate the score from a graph dataset (either available beforehand or generated from a known distribution). Numerical experiments demonstrate the benefits of our approach.
This paper delves into a nonparametric estimation approach for the interaction function within diffusion-type particle system models. We introduce two estimation methods based upon an empirical risk minimization. Our study encompasses an analysis of the stochastic and approximation errors associated with both procedures, along with an examination of certain minimax lower bounds. In particular, we show that there is a natural metric under which the corresponding minimax estimation error of the interaction function converges to zero with parametric rate. This result is rather suprising given complexity of the underlying estimation problem and rather large classes of interaction functions for which the above parametric rate holds.
Graph states are used to represent mathematical graphs as quantum states on quantum computers. They can be formulated through stabilizer codes or directly quantum gates and quantum states. In this paper we show that a quantum graph neural network model can be understood and realized based on graph states. We show that they can be used either as a parameterized quantum circuits to represent neural networks or as an underlying structure to construct graph neural networks on quantum computers.
We consider the application of a subspace migration (SM) algorithm to quickly identify small objects in microwave imaging. In various problems, it is easy to measure the diagonal elements of the scattering matrix if the location of the transmitter and the receiver is the same. To address this issue, several studies have been conducted by setting the diagonal elements to zero. In this paper, we generalize the imaging problem by setting diagonal elements of the scattering matrix as a constant with the application of SM. To show the applicability of SM and its dependence on the constant, we show that the imaging function of SM can be represented in terms of an infinite series of the Bessel functions of integer order, antenna number and arrangement, and applied constant. This result enables us to discover some further properties, including the unique determination of objects. We also demonstrated simulation results with synthetic data to support the theoretical result.
In large-scale systems there are fundamental challenges when centralised techniques are used for task allocation. The number of interactions is limited by resource constraints such as on computation, storage, and network communication. We can increase scalability by implementing the system as a distributed task-allocation system, sharing tasks across many agents. However, this also increases the resource cost of communications and synchronisation, and is difficult to scale. In this paper we present four algorithms to solve these problems. The combination of these algorithms enable each agent to improve their task allocation strategy through reinforcement learning, while changing how much they explore the system in response to how optimal they believe their current strategy is, given their past experience. We focus on distributed agent systems where the agents' behaviours are constrained by resource usage limits, limiting agents to local rather than system-wide knowledge. We evaluate these algorithms in a simulated environment where agents are given a task composed of multiple subtasks that must be allocated to other agents with differing capabilities, to then carry out those tasks. We also simulate real-life system effects such as networking instability. Our solution is shown to solve the task allocation problem to 6.7% of the theoretical optimal within the system configurations considered. It provides 5x better performance recovery over no-knowledge retention approaches when system connectivity is impacted, and is tested against systems up to 100 agents with less than a 9% impact on the algorithms' performance.
Recent advances in 3D fully convolutional networks (FCN) have made it feasible to produce dense voxel-wise predictions of volumetric images. In this work, we show that a multi-class 3D FCN trained on manually labeled CT scans of several anatomical structures (ranging from the large organs to thin vessels) can achieve competitive segmentation results, while avoiding the need for handcrafting features or training class-specific models. To this end, we propose a two-stage, coarse-to-fine approach that will first use a 3D FCN to roughly define a candidate region, which will then be used as input to a second 3D FCN. This reduces the number of voxels the second FCN has to classify to ~10% and allows it to focus on more detailed segmentation of the organs and vessels. We utilize training and validation sets consisting of 331 clinical CT images and test our models on a completely unseen data collection acquired at a different hospital that includes 150 CT scans, targeting three anatomical organs (liver, spleen, and pancreas). In challenging organs such as the pancreas, our cascaded approach improves the mean Dice score from 68.5 to 82.2%, achieving the highest reported average score on this dataset. We compare with a 2D FCN method on a separate dataset of 240 CT scans with 18 classes and achieve a significantly higher performance in small organs and vessels. Furthermore, we explore fine-tuning our models to different datasets. Our experiments illustrate the promise and robustness of current 3D FCN based semantic segmentation of medical images, achieving state-of-the-art results. Our code and trained models are available for download: //github.com/holgerroth/3Dunet_abdomen_cascade.