In resource allocation, we often require that the output allocation of an algorithm is stable against input perturbation because frequent reallocation is costly and untrustworthy. Varma and Yoshida (SODA'21) formalized this requirement for algorithms as the notion of average sensitivity. Here, the average sensitivity of an algorithm on an input instance is, roughly speaking, the average size of the symmetric difference of the output for the instance and that for the instance with one item deleted, where the average is taken over the deleted item. In this work, we consider the average sensitivity of the knapsack problem, a representative example of a resource allocation problem. We first show a $(1-\epsilon)$-approximation algorithm for the knapsack problem with average sensitivity $O(\epsilon^{-1}\log \epsilon^{-1})$. Then, we complement this result by showing that any $(1-\epsilon)$-approximation algorithm has average sensitivity $\Omega(\epsilon^{-1})$. As an application of our algorithm, we consider the incremental knapsack problem in the random-order setting, where the goal is to maintain a good solution while items arrive one by one in a random order. Specifically, we show that for any $\epsilon > 0$, there exists a $(1-\epsilon)$-approximation algorithm with amortized recourse $O(\epsilon^{-1}\log \epsilon^{-1})$ and amortized update time $O(\log n+f_\epsilon)$, where $n$ is the total number of items and $f_\epsilon>0$ is a value depending on $\epsilon$.
Motivated by communication systems with constrained complexity, we consider the problem of input symbol selection for discrete memoryless channels (DMCs). Given a DMC, the goal is to find a subset of its input alphabet, so that the optimal input distribution that is only supported on these symbols maximizes the capacity among all other subsets of the same size (or smaller). We observe that the resulting optimization problem is non-concave and non-submodular, and so generic methods for such cases do not have theoretical guarantees. We derive an analytical upper bound on the capacity loss when selecting a subset of input symbols based only on the properties of the transition matrix of the channel. We propose a selection algorithm that is based on input-symbols clustering, and an appropriate choice of representatives for each cluster, which uses the theoretical bound as a surrogate objective function. We provide numerical experiments to support the findings.
Current approaches in paraphrase generation and detection heavily rely on a single general similarity score, ignoring the intricate linguistic properties of language. This paper introduces two new tasks to address this shortcoming by considering paraphrase types - specific linguistic perturbations at particular text positions. We name these tasks Paraphrase Type Generation and Paraphrase Type Detection. Our results suggest that while current techniques perform well in a binary classification scenario, i.e., paraphrased or not, the inclusion of fine-grained paraphrase types poses a significant challenge. While most approaches are good at generating and detecting general semantic similar content, they fail to understand the intrinsic linguistic variables they manipulate. Models trained in generating and identifying paraphrase types also show improvements in tasks without them. In addition, scaling these models further improves their ability to understand paraphrase types. We believe paraphrase types can unlock a new paradigm for developing paraphrase models and solving tasks in the future.
The Schur-Horn theorem is a well-known result that characterizes the relationship between the diagonal elements and eigenvalues of a symmetric (Hermitian) matrix. In this paper, we extend this theorem by exploring the eigenvalue perturbation of a symmetric (Hermitian) matrix with fixed diagonals, which is referred to as the continuity of the Schur-Horn mapping. We introduce a concept called strong Schur-Horn continuity, characterized by minimal constraints on the perturbation. We demonstrate that several categories of matrices exhibit strong Schur-Horn continuity. Leveraging this notion, along with a majorization constraint on the perturbation, we prove the Schur-Horn continuity for general symmetric (Hermitian) matrices. The Schur-Horn continuity finds applications in oblique manifold optimization related to quantum computing.
The rise of the Internet of Things and edge computing has shifted computing resources closer to end-users, benefiting numerous delay-sensitive, computation-intensive applications. To speed up computation, distributed computing is a promising technique that allows parallel execution of tasks across multiple compute nodes. However, current research predominantly revolves around the master-worker paradigm, limiting resource sharing within one-hop neighborhoods. This limitation can render distributed computing ineffective in scenarios with limited nearby resources or constrained/dynamic connectivity. In this paper, we address this limitation by introducing a new distributed computing framework that extends resource sharing beyond one-hop neighborhoods through exploring layered network structures and multi-hop routing. Our framework involves transforming the network graph into a sink tree and formulating a joint optimization problem based on the layered tree structure for task allocation and scheduling. To solve this problem, we propose two exact methods that find optimal solutions and three heuristic strategies to improve efficiency and scalability. The performances of these methods are analyzed and evaluated through theoretical analyses and comprehensive simulation studies. The results demonstrate their promising performances over the traditional distributed computing and computation offloading strategies.
We argue that the selective inclusion of data points based on latent objectives is common in practical situations, such as music sequences. Since this selection process often distorts statistical analysis, previous work primarily views it as a bias to be corrected and proposes various methods to mitigate its effect. However, while controlling this bias is crucial, selection also offers an opportunity to provide a deeper insight into the hidden generation process, as it is a fundamental mechanism underlying what we observe. In particular, overlooking selection in sequential data can lead to an incomplete or overcomplicated inductive bias in modeling, such as assuming a universal autoregressive structure for all dependencies. Therefore, rather than merely viewing it as a bias, we explore the causal structure of selection in sequential data to delve deeper into the complete causal process. Specifically, we show that selection structure is identifiable without any parametric assumptions or interventional experiments. Moreover, even in cases where selection variables coexist with latent confounders, we still establish the nonparametric identifiability under appropriate structural conditions. Meanwhile, we also propose a provably correct algorithm to detect and identify selection structures as well as other types of dependencies. The framework has been validated empirically on both synthetic data and real-world music.
To analyze the worst-case running time of branching algorithms, the majority of work in exponential time algorithms focuses on designing complicated branching rules over developing better analysis methods for simple algorithms. In the mid-$2000$s, Fomin et al. [2005] introduced measure & conquer, an advanced general analysis method, sparking widespread adoption for obtaining tighter worst-case running time upper bounds for many fundamental NP-complete problems. Yet, much potential in this direction remains untapped, as most subsequent work applied it without further advancement. Motivated by this, we present piecewise analysis, a new general method that analyzes the running time of branching algorithms. Our approach is to define a similarity ratio that divides instances into groups and then analyze the running time within each group separately. The similarity ratio is a scale between two parameters of an instance I. Instead of relying on a single measure and a single analysis for the whole instance space, our method allows to take advantage of different intrinsic properties of instances with different similarity ratios. To showcase its potential, we reanalyze two $17$-year-old algorithms from Fomin et al. [2007] that solve $4$-Coloring and #$3$-Coloring respectively. The original analysis in their paper gave running times of $O(1.7272^n)$ and $O(1.6262^n)$ respectively for these algorithms, our analysis improves these running times to $O(1.7207^n)$ and $O(1.6225^n)$.
Compared to mean regression and quantile regression, the literature on modal regression is very sparse. A unifying framework for Bayesian modal regression is proposed, based on a family of unimodal distributions indexed by the mode, along with other parameters that allow for flexible shapes and tail behaviors. Sufficient conditions for posterior propriety under an improper prior on the mode parameter are derived. Following prior elicitation, regression analysis of simulated data and datasets from several real-life applications are conducted. Besides drawing inference for covariate effects that are easy to interpret, prediction and model selection under the proposed Bayesian modal regression framework are also considered. Evidence from these analyses suggest that the proposed inference procedures are very robust to outliers, enabling one to discover interesting covariate effects missed by mean or median regression, and to construct much tighter prediction intervals than those from mean or median regression. Computer programs for implementing the proposed Bayesian modal regression are available at //github.com/rh8liuqy/Bayesian_modal_regression.
In the Steiner Tree problem we are given an undirected edge-weighted graph as input, along with a set $K$ of vertices called terminals. The task is to output a minimum-weight connected subgraph that spans all the terminals. The famous Dreyfus-Wagner algorithm running in $3^{|K|} \mathsf{poly}(n)$ time shows that the problem is fixed-parameter tractable parameterized by the number of terminals. We present fixed-parameter tractable algorithms for Steiner Tree using structurally smaller parameterizations. Our first result concerns the parameterization by a multiway cut $S$ of the terminals, which is a vertex set $S$ (possibly containing terminals) such that each connected component of $G-S$ contains at most one terminal. We show that Steiner Tree can be solved in $2^{O(|S|\log|S|)}\mathsf{poly}(n)$ time and polynomial space, where $S$ is a minimum multiway cut for $K$. The algorithm is based on the insight that, after guessing how an optimal Steiner tree interacts with a multiway cut $S$, computing a minimum-cost solution of this type can be formulated as minimum-cost bipartite matching. Our second result concerns a new hybrid parameterization called $K$-free treewidth that simultaneously refines the number of terminals $|K|$ and the treewidth of the input graph. By utilizing recent work on $\mathcal{H}$-Treewidth in order to find a corresponding decomposition of the graph, we give an algorithm that solves Steiner Tree in time $2^{O(k)} \mathsf{poly}(n)$, where $k$ denotes the $K$-free treewidth of the input graph. To obtain this running time, we show how the rank-based approach for solving Steiner Tree parameterized by treewidth can be extended to work in the setting of $K$-free treewidth, by exploiting existing algorithms parameterized by $|K|$ to compute the table entries of leaf bags of a tree $K$-free decomposition.
Humans perceive the world by concurrently processing and fusing high-dimensional inputs from multiple modalities such as vision and audio. Machine perception models, in stark contrast, are typically modality-specific and optimised for unimodal benchmarks, and hence late-stage fusion of final representations or predictions from each modality (`late-fusion') is still a dominant paradigm for multimodal video classification. Instead, we introduce a novel transformer based architecture that uses `fusion bottlenecks' for modality fusion at multiple layers. Compared to traditional pairwise self-attention, our model forces information between different modalities to pass through a small number of bottleneck latents, requiring the model to collate and condense the most relevant information in each modality and only share what is necessary. We find that such a strategy improves fusion performance, at the same time reducing computational cost. We conduct thorough ablation studies, and achieve state-of-the-art results on multiple audio-visual classification benchmarks including Audioset, Epic-Kitchens and VGGSound. All code and models will be released.
As soon as abstract mathematical computations were adapted to computation on digital computers, the problem of efficient representation, manipulation, and communication of the numerical values in those computations arose. Strongly related to the problem of numerical representation is the problem of quantization: in what manner should a set of continuous real-valued numbers be distributed over a fixed discrete set of numbers to minimize the number of bits required and also to maximize the accuracy of the attendant computations? This perennial problem of quantization is particularly relevant whenever memory and/or computational resources are severely restricted, and it has come to the forefront in recent years due to the remarkable performance of Neural Network models in computer vision, natural language processing, and related areas. Moving from floating-point representations to low-precision fixed integer values represented in four bits or less holds the potential to reduce the memory footprint and latency by a factor of 16x; and, in fact, reductions of 4x to 8x are often realized in practice in these applications. Thus, it is not surprising that quantization has emerged recently as an important and very active sub-area of research in the efficient implementation of computations associated with Neural Networks. In this article, we survey approaches to the problem of quantizing the numerical values in deep Neural Network computations, covering the advantages/disadvantages of current methods. With this survey and its organization, we hope to have presented a useful snapshot of the current research in quantization for Neural Networks and to have given an intelligent organization to ease the evaluation of future research in this area.