How are abstract concepts and musical themes recognized on the basis of some previous experience? It is interesting to compare the different behaviors of human and of artificial intelligences with respect to this problem. Generally, a human mind that abstracts a concept (say, table) from a given set of known examples creates a table-Gestalt: a kind of vague and out of focus image that does not fully correspond to a particular table with well determined features. A similar situation arises in the case of musical themes. Can the construction of a gestaltic pattern, which is so natural for human minds, be taught to an intelligent machine? This problem can be successfully discussed in the framework of a quantum approach to pattern recognition and to machine learning. The basic idea is replacing classical data sets with quantum data sets, where either objects or musical themes can be formally represented as pieces of quantum information, involving the uncertainties and the ambiguities that characterize the quantum world. In this framework, the intuitive concept of Gestalt can be simulated by the mathematical concept of positive centroid of a given quantum data set. Accordingly, the crucial problem "how can we classify a new object or a new musical theme (we have listened to) on the basis of a previous experience?" can be dealt with in terms of some special quantum similarity-relations. Although recognition procedures are different for human and for artificial intelligences, there is a common method of "facing the problems" that seems to work in both cases.
Given a dataset of input states, measurements, and probabilities, is it possible to efficiently predict the measurement probabilities associated with a quantum circuit? Recent work of Caro and Datta (2020) studied the problem of PAC learning quantum circuits in an information theoretic sense, leaving open questions of computational efficiency. In particular, one candidate class of circuits for which an efficient learner might have been possible was that of Clifford circuits, since the corresponding set of states generated by such circuits, called stabilizer states, are known to be efficiently PAC learnable (Rocchetto 2018). Here we provide a negative result, showing that proper learning of CNOT circuits is hard for classical learners unless $\textsf{RP} = \textsf{NP}$. As the classical analogue and subset of Clifford circuits, this naturally leads to a hardness result for Clifford circuits as well. Additionally, we show that if $\textsf{RP} = \textsf{NP}$ then there would exist efficient proper learning algorithms for CNOT and Clifford circuits. By similar arguments, we also find that an efficient proper quantum learner for such circuits exists if and only if $\textsf{NP} \subseteq \textsf{RQP}$.
The approximate uniform sampling of graph realizations with a given degree sequence is an everyday task in several social science, computer science, engineering etc. projects. One approach is using Markov chains. The best available current result about the well-studied switch Markov chain is that it is rapidly mixing on P-stable degree sequences (see DOI:10.1016/j.ejc.2021.103421). The switch Markov chain does not change any degree sequence. However, there are cases where degree intervals are specified rather than a single degree sequence. (A natural scenario where this problem arises is in hypothesis testing on social networks that are only partially observed.) Rechner, Strowick, and M\"uller-Hannemann introduced in 2018 the notion of degree interval Markov chain which uses three (separately well-studied) local operations (switch, hinge-flip and toggle), and employing on degree sequence realizations where any two sequences under scrutiny have very small coordinate-wise distance. Recently Amanatidis and Kleer published a beautiful paper (arXiv:2110.09068), showing that the degree interval Markov chain is rapidly mixing if the sequences are coming from a system of very thin intervals which are centered not far from a regular degree sequence. In this paper we extend substantially their result, showing that the degree interval Markov chain is rapidly mixing if the intervals are centred at P-stable degree sequences.
Neural networks have had discernible achievements in a wide range of applications. The wide-spread adoption also raises the concern of their dependability and reliability. Similar to traditional decision-making programs, neural networks can have defects that need to be repaired. The defects may cause unsafe behaviors, raise security concerns or unjust societal impacts. In this work, we address the problem of repairing a neural network for desirable properties such as fairness and the absence of backdoor. The goal is to construct a neural network that satisfies the property by (minimally) adjusting the given neural network's parameters (i.e., weights). Specifically, we propose CARE (\textbf{CA}usality-based \textbf{RE}pair), a causality-based neural network repair technique that 1) performs causality-based fault localization to identify the `guilty' neurons and 2) optimizes the parameters of the identified neurons to reduce the misbehavior. We have empirically evaluated CARE on various tasks such as backdoor removal, neural network repair for fairness and safety properties. Our experiment results show that CARE is able to repair all neural networks efficiently and effectively. For fairness repair tasks, CARE successfully improves fairness by $61.91\%$ on average. For backdoor removal tasks, CARE reduces the attack success rate from over $98\%$ to less than $1\%$. For safety property repair tasks, CARE reduces the property violation rate to less than $1\%$. Results also show that thanks to the causality-based fault localization, CARE's repair focuses on the misbehavior and preserves the accuracy of the neural networks.
The blockchain-based smart contract lacks privacy since the contract state and instruction code are exposed to the public. Combining smart-contract execution with Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) provides an efficient solution, called TEE-assisted smart contracts, for protecting the confidentiality of contract states. However, the combination approaches are varied, and a systematic study is absent. Newly released systems may fail to draw upon the experience learned from existing protocols, such as repeating known design mistakes or applying TEE technology in insecure ways. In this paper, we first investigate and categorize the existing systems into two types: the layer-one solution and layer-two solution. Then, we establish an analysis framework to capture their common lights, covering the desired properties (for contract services), threat models, and security considerations (for underlying systems). Based on our taxonomy, we identify their ideal functionalities and uncover the fundamental flaws and reasons for the challenges in each specification design. We believe that this work would provide a guide for the development of TEE-assisted smart contracts, as well as a framework to evaluate future TEE-assisted confidential contract systems.
In this work a quantum analogue of Bayesian statistical inference is considered. Based on the notion of instrument, we propose a sequential measurement scheme from which observations needed for statistical inference are obtained. We further put forward a quantum analogue of Bayes rule, which states how the prior normal state of a quantum system updates under those observations. We next generalize the fundamental notions and results of Bayesian statistics according to the quantum Bayes rule. It is also note that our theory retains the classical one as its special case. Finally, we investigate the limit of posterior normal state as the number of observations tends to infinity.
Categorical probability has recently seen significant advances through the formalism of Markov categories, within which several classical theorems have been proven in entirely abstract categorical terms. Closely related to Markov categories are gs-monoidal categories, also known as CD categories. These omit a condition that implements the normalization of probability. Extending work of Corradini and Gadducci, we construct free gs-monoidal and free Markov categories generated by a collection of morphisms of arbitrary arity and coarity. For free gs-monoidal categories, this comes in the form of an explicit combinatorial description of their morphisms as structured cospans of labeled hypergraphs. These can be thought of as a formalization of gs-monoidal string diagrams ($=$term graphs) as a combinatorial data structure. We formulate the appropriate $2$-categorical universal property based on ideas of Walters and prove that our categories satisfy it. We expect our free categories to be relevant for computer implementations and we also argue that they can be used as statistical causal models generalizing Bayesian networks.
A nonoverlapping domain decomposition method is studied for the linearized Poisson--Boltzmann equation, which is essentially an interior-exterior transmission problem with bounded interior and unbounded exterior. This problem is different from the classical Schwarz alternating method for bounded nonoverlapping subdomains well studied by Lions in 1990, and is challenging due to the existence of unbounded subdomain. To obtain the convergence, a new concept of interior-exterior Sobolev constant is introduced and a spectral equivalence of related Dirichlet-to-Neumann operators is established afterwards. We prove rigorously that the spectral equivalence results in the convergence of interior-exterior iteration. Some numerical simulations are provided to investigate the optimal stepping parameter of iteration and to verify our convergence analysis.
Recent decades, the emergence of numerous novel algorithms makes it a gimmick to propose an intelligent optimization system based on metaphor, and hinders researchers from exploring the essence of search behavior in algorithms. However, it is difficult to directly discuss the search behavior of an intelligent optimization algorithm, since there are so many kinds of intelligent schemes. To address this problem, an intelligent optimization system is regarded as a simulated physical optimization system in this paper. The dynamic search behavior of such a simplified physical optimization system are investigated with quantum theory. To achieve this goal, the Schroedinger equation is employed as the dynamics equation of the optimization algorithm, which is used to describe dynamic search behaviours in the evolution process with quantum theory. Moreover, to explore the basic behaviour of the optimization system, the optimization problem is assumed to be decomposed and approximated. Correspondingly, the basic search behaviour is derived, which constitutes the basic iterative process of a simple optimization system. The basic iterative process is compared with some classical bare-bones schemes to verify the similarity of search behavior under different metaphors. The search strategies of these bare bones algorithms are analyzed through experiments.
Multi-fidelity models are of great importance due to their capability of fusing information coming from different simulations and sensors. In the context of Gaussian process regression we can exploit low-fidelity models to better capture the latent manifold thus improving the accuracy of the model. We focus on the approximation of high-dimensional scalar functions with low intrinsic dimensionality. By introducing a low dimensional bias in a chain of Gaussian processes with different fidelities we can fight the curse of dimensionality affecting these kind of quantities of interest, especially for many-query applications. In particular we seek a gradient-based reduction of the parameter space through linear active subspaces or a nonlinear transformation of the input space. Then we build a low-fidelity response surface based on such reduction, thus enabling multi-fidelity Gaussian process regression without the need of running new simulations with simplified physical models. This has a great potential in the data scarcity regime affecting many engineering applications. In this work we present a new multi-fidelity approach -- starting from the preliminary analysis conducted in Romor et al. 2020 -- involving active subspaces and nonlinear level-set learning method. The proposed numerical method is tested on two high-dimensional benchmark functions, and on a more complex car aerodynamics problem. We show how a low intrinsic dimensionality bias can increase the accuracy of Gaussian process response surfaces.
We present a novel static analysis technique to derive higher moments for program variables for a large class of probabilistic loops with potentially uncountable state spaces. Our approach is fully automatic, meaning it does not rely on externally provided invariants or templates. We employ algebraic techniques based on linear recurrences and introduce program transformations to simplify probabilistic programs while preserving their statistical properties. We develop power reduction techniques to further simplify the polynomial arithmetic of probabilistic programs and define the theory of moment-computable probabilistic loops for which higher moments can precisely be computed. Our work has applications towards recovering probability distributions of random variables and computing tail probabilities. The empirical evaluation of our results demonstrates the applicability of our work on many challenging examples.