The moment-sum-of-squares (moment-SOS) hierarchy is one of the most celebrated and widely applied methods for approximating the minimum of an n-variate polynomial over a feasible region defined by polynomial (in)equalities. A key feature of the hierarchy is that, at a fixed level, it can be formulated as a semidefinite program of size polynomial in the number of variables n. Although this suggests that it may therefore be computed in polynomial time, this is not necessarily the case. Indeed, as O'Donnell (2017) and later Raghavendra & Weitz (2017) show, there exist examples where the sos-representations used in the hierarchy have exponential bit-complexity. We study the computational complexity of the moment-SOS hierarchy, complementing and expanding upon earlier work of Raghavendra & Weitz (2017). In particular, we establish algebraic and geometric conditions under which polynomial-time computation is guaranteed to be possible.
Population-based structural health monitoring (PBSHM) aims to share valuable information among members of a population, such as normal- and damage-condition data, to improve inferences regarding the health states of the members. Even when the population is comprised of nominally-identical structures, benign variations among the members will exist as a result of slight differences in material properties, geometry, boundary conditions, or environmental effects (e.g., temperature changes). These discrepancies can affect modal properties and present as changes in the characteristics of the resonance peaks of the frequency response function (FRF). Many SHM strategies depend on monitoring the dynamic properties of structures, so benign variations can be challenging for the practical implementation of these systems. Another common challenge with vibration-based SHM is data loss, which may result from transmission issues, sensor failure, a sample-rate mismatch between sensors, and other causes. Missing data in the time domain will result in decreased resolution in the frequency domain, which can impair dynamic characterisation. The hierarchical Bayesian approach provides a useful modelling structure for PBSHM, because statistical distributions at the population and individual (or domain) level are learnt simultaneously to bolster statistical strength among the parameters. As a result, variance is reduced among the parameter estimates, particularly when data are limited. In this paper, combined probabilistic FRF models are developed for a small population of nominally-identical helicopter blades under varying temperature conditions, using a hierarchical Bayesian structure. These models address critical challenges in SHM, by accommodating benign variations that present as differences in the underlying dynamics, while also considering (and utilising), the similarities among the blades.
The non-parametric estimation of a non-linear reaction term in a semi-linear parabolic stochastic partial differential equation (SPDE) is discussed. The estimation error can be bounded in terms of the diffusivity and the noise level. The estimator is easily computable and consistent under general assumptions due to the asymptotic spatial ergodicity of the SPDE as both the diffusivity and the noise level tend to zero. If the SPDE is driven by space-time white noise, a central limit theorem for the estimation error and minimax-optimality of the convergence rate are obtained. The analysis of the estimation error requires the control of spatial averages of non-linear transformations of the SPDE, and combines the Clark-Ocone formula from Malliavin calculus with the Markovianity of the SPDE. In contrast to previous results on the convergence of spatial averages, the obtained variance bound is uniform in the Lipschitz-constant of the transformation. Additionally, new upper and lower Gaussian bounds for the marginal (Lebesgue-) densities of the SPDE are required and derived.
Given a sequence of observable variables $\{(x_1, y_1), \ldots, (x_n, y_n)\}$, the conformal prediction method estimates a confidence set for $y_{n+1}$ given $x_{n+1}$ that is valid for any finite sample size by merely assuming that the joint distribution of the data is permutation invariant. Although attractive, computing such a set is computationally infeasible in most regression problems. Indeed, in these cases, the unknown variable $y_{n+1}$ can take an infinite number of possible candidate values, and generating conformal sets requires retraining a predictive model for each candidate. In this paper, we focus on a sparse linear model with only a subset of variables for prediction and use numerical continuation techniques to approximate the solution path efficiently. The critical property we exploit is that the set of selected variables is invariant under a small perturbation of the input data. Therefore, it is sufficient to enumerate and refit the model only at the change points of the set of active features and smoothly interpolate the rest of the solution via a Predictor-Corrector mechanism. We show how our path-following algorithm accurately approximates conformal prediction sets and illustrate its performance using synthetic and real data examples.
It is well known that the Euler method for approximating the solutions of a random ordinary differential equation $\mathrm{d}X_t/\mathrm{d}t = f(t, X_t, Y_t)$ driven by a stochastic process $\{Y_t\}_t$ with $\theta$-H\"older sample paths is estimated to be of strong order $\theta$ with respect to the time step, provided $f=f(t, x, y)$ is sufficiently regular and with suitable bounds. Here, it is proved that, in many typical cases, further conditions on the noise can be exploited so that the strong convergence is actually of order 1, regardless of the H\"older regularity of the sample paths. This applies for instance to additive or multiplicative It\^o process noises (such as Wiener, Ornstein-Uhlenbeck, and geometric Brownian motion processes); to point-process noises (such as Poisson point processes and Hawkes self-exciting processes, which even have jump-type discontinuities); and to transport-type processes with sample paths of bounded variation. The result is based on a novel approach, estimating the global error as an iterated integral over both large and small mesh scales, and switching the order of integration to move the critical regularity to the large scale. The work is complemented with numerical simulations illustrating the strong order 1 convergence in those cases, and with an example with fractional Brownian motion noise with Hurst parameter $0 < H < 1/2$ for which the order of convergence is $H + 1/2$, hence lower than the attained order 1 in the examples above, but still higher than the order $H$ of convergence expected from previous works.
Orienting the edges of an undirected graph such that the resulting digraph satisfies some given constraints is a classical problem in graph theory, with multiple algorithmic applications. In particular, an $st$-orientation orients each edge of the input graph such that the resulting digraph is acyclic, and it contains a single source $s$ and a single sink $t$. Computing an $st$-orientation of a graph can be done efficiently, and it finds notable applications in graph algorithms and in particular in graph drawing. On the other hand, finding an $st$-orientation with at most $k$ transitive edges is more challenging and it was recently proven to be NP-hard already when $k=0$. We strengthen this result by showing that the problem remains NP-hard even for graphs of bounded diameter, and for graphs of bounded vertex degree. These computational lower bounds naturally raise the question about which structural parameters can lead to tractable parameterizations of the problem. Our main result is a fixed-parameter tractable algorithm parameterized by treewidth.
Classical physical modelling with associated numerical simulation (model-based), and prognostic methods based on the analysis of large amounts of data (data-driven) are the two most common methods used for the mapping of complex physical processes. In recent years, the efficient combination of these approaches has become increasingly important. Continuum mechanics in the core consists of conservation equations that -- in addition to the always necessary specification of the process conditions -- can be supplemented by phenomenological material models. The latter are an idealized image of the specific material behavior that can be determined experimentally, empirically, and based on a wealth of expert knowledge. The more complex the material, the more difficult the calibration is. This situation forms the starting point for this work's hybrid data-driven and model-based approach for mapping a complex physical process in continuum mechanics. Specifically, we use data generated from a classical physical model by the MESHFREE software to train a Principal Component Analysis-based neural network (PCA-NN) for the task of parameter identification of the material model parameters. The obtained results highlight the potential of deep-learning-based hybrid models for determining parameters, which are the key to characterizing materials occurring naturally, and their use in industrial applications (e.g. the interaction of vehicles with sand).
In this work, a novel analysis of a hybrid discontinuous Galerkin method for the Helmholtz equation is presented. It uses wavenumber, mesh size and polynomial degree independent stabilisation parameters leading to impedance traces between elements. With analysis techniques based on projection operators unique discrete solvability without a resolution condition and optimal convergence rates with respect to the mesh size are proven. The considered method is tailored towards enabling static condensation and the usage of iterative solvers.
We consider the problem of uncertainty quantification in change point regressions, where the signal can be piecewise polynomial of arbitrary but fixed degree. That is we seek disjoint intervals which, uniformly at a given confidence level, must each contain a change point location. We propose a procedure based on performing local tests at a number of scales and locations on a sparse grid, which adapts to the choice of grid in the sense that by choosing a sparser grid one explicitly pays a lower price for multiple testing. The procedure is fast as its computational complexity is always of the order $\mathcal{O} (n \log (n))$ where $n$ is the length of the data, and optimal in the sense that under certain mild conditions every change point is detected with high probability and the widths of the intervals returned match the mini-max localisation rates for the associated change point problem up to log factors. A detailed simulation study shows our procedure is competitive against state of the art algorithms for similar problems. Our procedure is implemented in the R package ChangePointInference which is available via //github.com/gaviosha/ChangePointInference.
Cook and Reckhow 1979 pointed out that NP is not closed under complementation iff there is no propositional proof system that admits polynomial size proofs of all tautologies. Theory of proof complexity generators aims at constructing sets of tautologies hard for strong and possibly for all proof systems. We focus at a conjecture from K.2004 in foundations of the theory that there is a proof complexity generator hard for all proof systems. This can be equivalently formulated (for p-time generators) without a reference to proof complexity notions as follows: * There exist a p-time function $g$ stretching each input by one bit such that its range intersects all infinite NP sets. We consider several facets of this conjecture, including its links to bounded arithmetic (witnessing and independence results), to time-bounded Kolmogorov complexity, to feasible disjunction property of propositional proof systems and to complexity of proof search. We argue that a specific gadget generator from K.2009 is a good candidate for $g$. We define a new hardness property of generators, the $\bigvee$-hardness, and shows that one specific gadget generator is the $\bigvee$-hardest (w.r.t. any sufficiently strong proof system). We define the class of feasibly infinite NP sets and show, assuming a hypothesis from circuit complexity, that the conjecture holds for all feasibly infinite NP sets.
In this work, we investigate the interval generalized Sylvester matrix equation ${\bf{A}}X{\bf{B}}+{\bf{C}}X{\bf{D}}={\bf{F}}$ and develop some techniques for obtaining outer estimations for the so-called united solution set of this interval system. First, we propose a modified variant of the Krawczyk operator which causes reducing computational complexity to cubic, compared to Kronecker product form. We then propose an iterative technique for enclosing the solution set. These approaches are based on spectral decompositions of the midpoints of ${\bf{A}}$, ${\bf{B}}$, ${\bf{C}}$ and ${\bf{D}}$ and in both of them we suppose that the midpoints of ${\bf{A}}$ and ${\bf{C}}$ are simultaneously diagonalizable as well as for the midpoints of the matrices ${\bf{B}}$ and ${\bf{D}}$. Some numerical experiments are given to illustrate the performance of the proposed methods.