We numerically compute the lowest Laplacian eigenvalues of several two-dimensional shapes with dihedral symmetry at arbitrary precision arithmetic. Our approach is based on the method of particular solutions with domain decomposition. We are particularly interested in asymptotic expansions of the eigenvalues $\lambda(n)$ of shapes with $n$ edges that are of the form $\lambda(n) \sim x\sum_{k=0}^{\infty} \frac{C_k(x)}{n^k}$ where $x$ is the limiting eigenvalue for $n\rightarrow \infty$. Expansions of this form have previously only been known for regular polygons with Dirichlet boundary condition and (quite surprisingly) involve Riemann zeta values and single-valued multiple zeta values, which makes them interesting to study. We provide numerical evidence for closed-form expressions of higher order $C_k(x)$ and give more examples of shapes for which such expansions are possible (including regular polygons with Neumann boundary condition, regular star polygons and star shapes with sinusoidal boundary).
In this paper we present a general, axiomatical framework for the rigorous approximation of invariant densities and other important statistical features of dynamics. We approximate the system trough a finite element reduction, by composing the associated transfer operator with a suitable finite dimensional projection (a discretization scheme) as in the well-known Ulam method. We introduce a general framework based on a list of properties (of the system and of the projection) that need to be verified so that we can take advantage of a so-called ``coarse-fine'' strategy. This strategy is a novel method in which we exploit information coming from a coarser approximation of the system to get useful information on a finer approximation, speeding up the computation. This coarse-fine strategy allows a precise estimation of invariant densities and also allows to estimate rigorously the speed of mixing of the system by the speed of mixing of a coarse approximation of it, which can easily be estimated by the computer. The estimates obtained here are rigourous, i.e., they come with exact error bounds that are guaranteed to hold and take into account both the discretiazation and the approximations induced by finite-precision arithmetic. We apply this framework to several discretization schemes and examples of invariant density computation from previous works, obtaining a remarkable reduction in computation time. We have implemented the numerical methods described here in the Julia programming language, and released our implementation publicly as a Julia package.
Recent years have seen rapid progress at the intersection between causality and machine learning. Motivated by scientific applications involving high-dimensional data, in particular in biomedicine, we propose a deep neural architecture for learning causal relationships between variables from a combination of empirical data and prior causal knowledge. We combine convolutional and graph neural networks within a causal risk framework to provide a flexible and scalable approach. Empirical results include linear and nonlinear simulations (where the underlying causal structures are known and can be directly compared against), as well as a real biological example where the models are applied to high-dimensional molecular data and their output compared against entirely unseen validation experiments. These results demonstrate the feasibility of using deep learning approaches to learn causal networks in large-scale problems spanning thousands of variables.
We propose a data-driven mean-curvature solver for the level-set method. This work is the natural extension to $\mathbb{R}^3$ of our two-dimensional strategy in [DOI: 10.1007/s10915-022-01952-2][1] and the hybrid inference system of [DOI: 10.1016/j.jcp.2022.111291][2]. However, in contrast to [1,2], which built resolution-dependent neural-network dictionaries, here we develop a pair of models in $\mathbb{R}^3$, regardless of the mesh size. Our feedforward networks ingest transformed level-set, gradient, and curvature data to fix numerical mean-curvature approximations selectively for interface nodes. To reduce the problem's complexity, we have used the Gaussian curvature to classify stencils and fit our models separately to non-saddle and saddle patterns. Non-saddle stencils are easier to handle because they exhibit a curvature error distribution characterized by monotonicity and symmetry. While the latter has allowed us to train only on half the mean-curvature spectrum, the former has helped us blend the data-driven and the baseline estimations seamlessly near flat regions. On the other hand, the saddle-pattern error structure is less clear; thus, we have exploited no latent information beyond what is known. In this regard, we have trained our models on not only spherical but also sinusoidal and hyperbolic paraboloidal patches. Our approach to building their data sets is systematic but gleans samples randomly while ensuring well-balancedness. We have also resorted to standardization and dimensionality reduction and integrated regularization to minimize outliers. In addition, we leverage curvature rotation/reflection invariance to improve precision at inference time. Several experiments confirm that our proposed system can yield more accurate mean-curvature estimations than modern particle-based interface reconstruction and level-set schemes around under-resolved regions.
Integrated information theory (IIT) is a theoretical framework that provides a quantitative measure to estimate when a physical system is conscious, its degree of consciousness, and the complexity of the qualia space that the system is experiencing. Formally, IIT rests on the assumption that if a surrogate physical system can fully embed the phenomenological properties of consciousness, then the system properties must be constrained by the properties of the qualia being experienced. Following this assumption, IIT represents the physical system as a network of interconnected elements that can be thought of as a probabilistic causal graph, $\mathcal{G}$, where each node has an input-output function and all the graph is encoded in a transition probability matrix. Consequently, IIT's quantitative measure of consciousness, $\Phi$, is computed with respect to the transition probability matrix and the present state of the graph. In this paper, we provide a random search algorithm that is able to optimize $\Phi$ in order to investigate, as the number of nodes increases, the structure of the graphs that have higher $\Phi$. We also provide arguments that show the difficulties of applying more complex black-box search algorithms, such as Bayesian optimization or metaheuristics, in this particular problem. Additionally, we suggest specific research lines for these techniques to enhance the search algorithm that guarantees maximal $\Phi$.
We investigate the problem of recovering a partially observed high-rank matrix whose columns obey a nonlinear structure such as a union of subspaces, an algebraic variety or grouped in clusters. The recovery problem is formulated as the rank minimization of a nonlinear feature map applied to the original matrix, which is then further approximated by a constrained non-convex optimization problem involving the Grassmann manifold. We propose two sets of algorithms, one arising from Riemannian optimization and the other as an alternating minimization scheme, both of which include first- and second-order variants. Both sets of algorithms have theoretical guarantees. In particular, for the alternating minimization, we establish global convergence and worst-case complexity bounds. Additionally, using the Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz property, we show that the alternating minimization converges to a unique limit point. We provide extensive numerical results for the recovery of union of subspaces and clustering under entry sampling and dense Gaussian sampling. Our methods are competitive with existing approaches and, in particular, high accuracy is achieved in the recovery using Riemannian second-order methods.
In this work, we study the numerical solution of inverse eigenvalue problems from a machine learning perspective. Two different problems are considered: the inverse Strum-Liouville eigenvalue problem for symmetric potentials and the inverse transmission eigenvalue problem for spherically symmetric refractive indices. Firstly, we solve the corresponding direct problems to produce the required eigenvalues datasets in order to train the machine learning algorithms. Next, we consider several examples of inverse problems and compare the performance of each model to predict the unknown potentials and refractive indices respectively, from a given small set of the lowest eigenvalues. The supervised regression models we use are k-Nearest Neighbours, Random Forests and Multi-Layer Perceptron. Our experiments show that these machine learning methods, under appropriate tuning on their parameters, can numerically solve the examined inverse eigenvalue problems.
The 0-1 linear programming problem with nonnegative constraint matrix and objective vector e origins from many NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems. In this paper, we consider recovering an optimal solution to the problem from a weighted linear programming.We first formulate the problem equivalently as a sparse optimization problem. Next, we consider the consistency of the optimal solution of the sparse optimization problem and the weighted linear programming problem. In order to achieve this, we establish nonnegative partial s-goodness of the constraint matrix and the weighted vector. Further, we use two quantities to characterize a sufficient condition and necessary condition for the nonnegative partial s-goodness. However, the two quantities are difficult to calculate, therefore, we provide a computable upper bound for one of the two quantities to verify the nonnegative partial s-goodness. Finally, we give three examples to illustrate that our theory is effective and verifiable.
Results on the spectral behavior of random matrices as the dimension increases are applied to the problem of detecting the number of sources impinging on an array of sensors. A common strategy to solve this problem is to estimate the multiplicity of the smallest eigenvalue of the spatial covariance matrix $R$ of the sensed data from the sample covariance matrix $\widehat{R}$. Existing approaches, such as that based on information theoretic criteria, rely on the closeness of the noise eigenvalues of $\widehat R$ to each other and, therefore, the sample size has to be quite large when the number of sources is large in order to obtain a good estimate. The analysis presented in this report focuses on the splitting of the spectrum of $\widehat{R}$ into noise and signal eigenvalues. It is shown that, when the number of sensors is large, the number of signals can be estimated with a sample size considerably less than that required by previous approaches. The practical significance of the main result is that detection can be achieved with a number of samples comparable to the number of sensors in large dimensional array processing.
A fundamental bottleneck in utilising complex machine learning systems for critical applications has been not knowing why they do and what they do, thus preventing the development of any crucial safety protocols. To date, no method exist that can provide full insight into the granularity of the neural network's decision process. In the past, saliency maps were an early attempt at resolving this problem through sensitivity calculations, whereby dimensions of a data point are selected based on how sensitive the output of the system is to them. However, the success of saliency maps has been at best limited, mainly due to the fact that they interpret the underlying learning system through a linear approximation. We present a novel class of methods for generating nonlinear saliency maps which fully account for the nonlinearity of the underlying learning system. While agreeing with linear saliency maps on simple problems where linear saliency maps are correct, they clearly identify more specific drivers of classification on complex examples where nonlinearities are more pronounced. This new class of methods significantly aids interpretability of deep neural networks and related machine learning systems. Crucially, they provide a starting point for their more broad use in serious applications, where 'why' is equally important as 'what'.
Relational verification encompasses information flow security, regression verification, translation validation for compilers, and more. Effective alignment of the programs and computations to be related facilitates use of simpler relational invariants and relational procedure specs, which in turn enables automation and modular reasoning. Alignment has been explored in terms of trace pairs, deductive rules of relational Hoare logics (RHL), and several forms of product automata. This article shows how a simple extension of Kleene Algebra with Tests (KAT), called BiKAT, subsumes prior formulations, including alignment witnesses for forall-exists properties, which brings to light new RHL-style rules for such properties. Alignments can be discovered algorithmically or devised manually but, in either case, their adequacy with respect to the original programs must be proved; an explicit algebra enables constructive proof by equational reasoning. Furthermore our approach inherits algorithmic benefits from existing KAT-based techniques and tools, which are applicable to a range of semantic models.