Traditional statistical analysis requires that the analysis process and data are independent. By contrast, the new field of adaptive data analysis hopes to understand and provide algorithms and accuracy guarantees for research as it is commonly performed in practice, as an iterative process of interacting repeatedly with the same data set, such as repeated tests against a holdout set. Previous work has defined a model with a rather strong lower bound on sample complexity in terms of the number of queries, $n\sim\sqrt q$, arguing that adaptive data analysis is much harder than static data analysis, where $n\sim\log q$ is possible. Instead, we argue that those strong lower bounds point to a limitation of the previous model in that it must consider wildly asymmetric scenarios which do not hold in typical applications.
To better understand other difficulties of adaptivity, we propose a new Bayesian version of the problem that mandates symmetry. Since the other lower bound techniques are ruled out, we can more effectively see difficulties that might otherwise be overshadowed. As a first contribution to this model, we produce a new problem using error-correcting codes on which a large family of methods, including all previously proposed algorithms, require roughly $n\sim\sqrt[4]q$. These early results illustrate new difficulties in adaptive data analysis regarding slightly correlated queries on problems with concentrated uncertainty.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory（劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室）
We present an adaptive approach to the construction of Gaussian process surrogates for Bayesian inference with expensive-to-evaluate forward models. Our method relies on the fully Bayesian approach to training Gaussian process models and utilizes the expected improvement idea from Bayesian global optimization. We adaptively construct training designs by maximizing the expected improvement in fit of the Gaussian process model to the noisy observational data. Numerical experiments on model problems with synthetic data demonstrate the effectiveness of the obtained adaptive designs compared to the…
We formulate the problem of neural network optimization as Bayesian filtering, where the observations are the backpropagated gradients. While neural network optimization has previously been studied using natural gradient methods which are closely related to Bayesian inference, they were unable to recover standard optimizers such as Adam and RMSprop with a root-mean-square gradient normalizer, instead getting a mean-square normalizer. To recover the root-mean-square normalizer, we find it necessary to account for the temporal dynamics of all the other parameters as they are geing optimized. The…
Texas A&M University（德克萨斯A&M大学）；The University of Texas at Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校）
We propose a unified framework for adaptive connection sampling in graph neural networks (GNNs) that generalizes existing stochastic regularization methods for training GNNs. The proposed framework not only alleviates over-smoothing and over-fitting tendencies of deep GNNs, but also enables learning with uncertainty in graph analytic tasks with GNNs. Instead of using fixed sampling rates or hand-tuning them as model hyperparameters in existing stochastic regularization methods, our adaptive connection sampling can be trained jointly with GNN model parameters in both global and local fashions. …
We introduce a novel framework for the estimation of the posterior distribution over the weights of a neural network, based on a new probabilistic interpretation of adaptive optimisation algorithms such as AdaGrad and Adam. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our Bayesian Adam method, Badam, by experimentally showing that the learnt uncertainties correctly relate to the weights' predictive capabilities by weight pruning. We also demonstrate the quality of the derived uncertainty measures by comparing the performance of Badam to standard methods in a Thompson sampling setting for multi-armed ba…
To solve a machine learning problem, one typically needs to perform data preprocessing, modeling, and hyperparameter tuning, which is known as model selection and hyperparameter optimization.The goal of automated machine learning (AutoML) is to design methods that can automatically perform model selection and hyperparameter optimization without human interventions for a given dataset. In this paper, we propose a meta-learning method that can search for a high-performance machine learning pipeline from the predefined set of candidate pipelines for supervised classification datasets in an effici…
Monte Carlo sampling for Bayesian posterior inference is a common approach used in machine learning. The Markov Chain Monte Carlo procedures that are used are often discrete-time analogues of associated stochastic differential equations (SDEs). These SDEs are guaranteed to leave invariant the required posterior distribution. An area of current research addresses the computational benefits of stochastic gradient methods in this setting. Existing techniques rely on estimating the variance or covariance of the subsampling error, and typically assume constant variance. In this article, we propose …
CERMICS, Ecole des Ponts（巴黎桥路学校 CERMICS 实验室）；Inria Paris（法国国家信息与自动化研究所巴黎中心）
Bayesian inference allows to obtain useful information on the parameters of models, either in computational statistics or more recently in the context of Bayesian Neural Networks. The computational cost of usual Monte Carlo methods for sampling posterior laws in Bayesian inference scales linearly with the number of data points. One option to reduce it to a fraction of this cost is to resort to mini-batching in conjunction with unadjusted discretizations of Langevin dynamics, in which case only a random fraction of the data is used to estimate the gradient. However, this leads to an additional …
Probabilistic vehicle trajectory prediction is essential for robust safety of autonomous driving. Current methods for long-term trajectory prediction cannot guarantee the physical feasibility of predicted distribution. Moreover, their models cannot adapt to the driving policy of the predicted target human driver. In this work, we propose to overcome these two shortcomings by a Bayesian recurrent neural network model consisting of Bayesian-neural-network-based policy model and known physical model of the scenario. Bayesian neural network can ensemble complicated output distribution, enabling ri…
Bayesian optimization (BO) is a model-based approach for gradient-free black-box function optimization. Typically, BO is powered by a Gaussian process (GP), whose algorithmic complexity is cubic in the number of evaluations. Hence, GP-based BO cannot leverage large amounts of past or related function evaluations, for example, to warm start the BO procedure. We develop a multiple adaptive Bayesian linear regression model as a scalable alternative whose complexity is linear in the number of observations. The multiple Bayesian linear regression models are coupled through a shared feedforward neur…
We propose a novel adaptive empirical Bayesian method for sparse deep learning, where the sparsity is ensured via a class of self-adaptive spike-and-slab priors. The proposed method works by alternatively sampling from an adaptive hierarchical posterior distribution using stochastic gradient Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and smoothly optimizing the hyperparameters using stochastic approximation (SA). We further prove the convergence of the proposed method to the asymptotically correct distribution under mild conditions. Empirical applications of the proposed method lead to the state-of-the-a…
EURECOM（欧洲电信学院）；University of Tübingen（图宾根大学）；Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems（马克斯·普朗克智能系统研究所）
Adaptive Bayesian quadrature (ABQ) is a powerful approach to numerical integration that empirically compares favorably with Monte Carlo integration on problems of medium dimensionality (where non-adaptive quadrature is not competitive). Its key ingredient is an acquisition function that changes as a function of previously collected values of the integrand. While this adaptivity appears to be empirically powerful, it complicates analysis. Consequently, there are no theoretical guarantees so far for this class of methods. In this work, for a broad class of adaptive Bayesian quadrature methods, w…
Chiba University（千叶大学）；The University of Tokyo（东京大学）
A method to predict time-series using multiple deep learners and a Bayesian network is proposed. In this study, the input explanatory variables are Bayesian network nodes that are associated with learners. Training data are divided using K-means clustering, and multiple deep learners are trained depending on the cluster. A Bayesian network is used to determine which deep learner is in charge of predicting a time-series. We determine a threshold value and select learners with a posterior probability equal to or greater than the threshold value, which could facilitate more robust prediction. The…
We consider Bayesian inference problems with computationally intensive likelihood functions. We propose a Gaussian process (GP) based method to approximate the joint distribution of the unknown parameters and the data. In particular, we write the joint density approximately as a product of an approximate posterior density and an exponentiated GP surrogate. We then provide an adaptive algorithm to construct such an approximation, where an active learning method is used to choose the design points. With numerical examples, we illustrate that the proposed method has competitive performance agains…
We propose a new probabilistic graphical model that jointly models the difficulties of questions, the abilities of participants and the correct answers to questions in aptitude testing and crowdsourcing settings. We devise an active learning/adaptive testing scheme based on a greedy minimization of expected model entropy, which allows a more efficient resource allocation by dynamically choosing the next question to be asked based on the previous responses. We present experimental results that confirm the ability of our model to infer the required parameters and demonstrate that the adaptive te…
The new field of adaptive data analysis seeks to provide algorithms and provable guarantees for models of machine learning that allow researchers to reuse their data, which normally falls outside of the usual statistical paradigm of static data analysis. In 2014, Dwork, Feldman, Hardt, Pitassi, Reingold and Roth introduced one potential model and proposed several solutions based on differential privacy. In previous work in 2016, we described a problem with this model and instead proposed a Bayesian variant, but also found that the analogous Bayesian methods cannot achieve the same statistical …
University of Southern California（南加州大学）；University of California, San Diego（加州大学圣地亚哥分校）
The problem of adaptive sampling for estimating probability mass functions (pmf) uniformly well is considered. Performance of the sampling strategy is measured in terms of the worst-case mean squared error. A Bayesian variant of the existing upper confidence bound (UCB) based approaches is proposed. It is shown analytically that the performance of this Bayesian variant is no worse than the existing approaches. The posterior distribution on the pmfs in the Bayesian setting allows for a tighter computation of upper confidence bounds which leads to significant performance gains in practice. Using…
In this paper we develop and study adaptive empirical Bayesian smoothing splines. These are smoothing splines with both smoothing parameter and penalty order determined via the empirical Bayes method from the marginal likelihood of the model. The selected order and smoothing parameter are used to construct adaptive credible sets with good frequentist coverage for the underlying regression function. We use these credible sets as a proxy to show the superior performance of adaptive empirical Bayesian smoothing splines compared to frequentist smoothing splines.
This paper proposes a new randomized strategy for adaptive MCMC using Bayesian optimization. This approach applies to non-differentiable objective functions and trades off exploration and exploitation to reduce the number of potentially costly objective function evaluations. We demonstrate the strategy in the complex setting of sampling from constrained, discrete and densely connected probabilistic graphical models where, for each variation of the problem, one needs to adjust the parameters of the proposal mechanism automatically to ensure efficient mixing of the Markov chains.
Bayesian optimization is normally performed within fixed variable bounds. In cases like hyperparameter tuning for machine learning algorithms, setting the variable bounds is not trivial. It is hard to guarantee that any fixed bounds will include the true global optimum. We propose a Bayesian optimization approach that only needs to specify an initial search space that does not necessarily include the global optimum, and expands the search space when necessary. However, over-exploration may occur during the search space expansion. Our method can adaptively balance exploration and exploitation i…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are powerful computational tools for analysis of complex statistical problems. However, their computational efficiency is highly dependent on the chosen proposal distribution, which is generally difficult to find. One way to solve this problem is to use adaptive MCMC algorithms which automatically tune the statistics of a proposal distribution during the MCMC run. A new adaptive MCMC algorithm, called the variational Bayesian adaptive Metropolis (VBAM) algorithm, is developed. The VBAM algorithm updates the proposal covariance matrix using the variationa…
In psychophysical experiments time and the limited goodwill of participants is usually a major constraint. This has been the main motivation behind the early development of adaptive methods for the measurements of psychometric thresholds. More recently methods have been developed to measure whole psychometric functions in an adaptive way. Here we describe a Bayesian method to measure adaptively any aspect of a psychophysical function, taking inspiration from Kontsevich and Tyler's optimal Bayesian measurement method. Our method is implemented in a complete and easy-to-use MATLAB package.
Computational models in fields such as computational neuroscience are often evaluated via stochastic simulation or numerical approximation. Fitting these models implies a difficult optimization problem over complex, possibly noisy parameter landscapes. Bayesian optimization (BO) has been successfully applied to solving expensive black-box problems in engineering and machine learning. Here we explore whether BO can be applied as a general tool for model fitting. First, we present a novel hybrid BO algorithm, Bayesian adaptive direct search (BADS), that achieves competitive performance with an a…
In this letter we revisit the problem of optimal design of quantum tomographic experiments. In contrast to previous approaches where an optimal set of measurements is decided in advance of the experiment, we allow for measurements to be adaptively and efficiently re-optimised depending on data collected so far. We develop an adaptive statistical framework based on Bayesian inference and Shannon's information, and demonstrate a ten-fold reduction in the total number of measurements required as compared to non-adaptive methods, including mutually unbiased bases.
Adaptive control approaches yield high-performance controllers when a precise system model or suitable parametrizations of the controller are available. Existing data-driven approaches for adaptive control mostly augment standard model-based methods with additional information about uncertainties in the dynamics or about disturbances. In this work, we propose a purely data-driven, model-free approach for adaptive control. Tuning low-level controllers based solely on system data raises concerns on the underlying algorithm safety and computational performance. Thus, our approach builds on GoOSE,…
We provide the first stochastic convergence rates for a family of adaptive quadrature rules used to normalize the posterior distribution in Bayesian models. Our results apply to the uniform relative error in the approximate posterior density, the coverage probabilities of approximate credible sets, and approximate moments and quantiles, therefore guaranteeing fast asymptotic convergence of approximate summary statistics used in practice. The family of quadrature rules includes adaptive Gauss-Hermite quadrature, and we apply this rule in two challenging low-dimensional examples. Further, we dem…
The paper deals with the non-parametric estimation in the regression with the multiplicative noise. Using the local polynomial fitting and the bayesian approach, we construct the minimax on isotropic Hölder class estimator. Next applying Lepski's method, we propose the estimator which is optimally adaptive over the collection of isotropic Hölder classes. To prove the optimality of the proposed procedure we establish, in particular, the exponential inequality for the deviation of locally bayesian estimator from the parameter to be estimated. These theoretical results are illustrated by simulati…
A simple and efficient adaptive Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method, called the Metropolized Adaptive Subspace (MAdaSub) algorithm, is proposed for sampling from high-dimensional posterior model distributions in Bayesian variable selection. The MAdaSub algorithm is based on an independent Metropolis-Hastings sampler, where the individual proposal probabilities of the explanatory variables are updated after each iteration using a form of Bayesian adaptive learning, in a way that they finally converge to the respective covariates' posterior inclusion probabilities. We prove the ergodicity of …
A fast, flexible simulation framework for Bayesian adaptive designs -- the R package BATSS
MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge（剑桥大学医学研究委员会生物统计学单位）；School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University（莫纳什大学公共卫生与预防医学院）；Faculty of Informatics and Data Science, University of Regensburg（雷根斯堡大学信息科学与数据科学学院）
Optimal designs minimize the number of experimental runs (samples) needed to accurately estimate model parameters, resulting in algorithms that, for instance, efficiently minimize parameter estimate variance. Governed by knowledge of past observations, adaptive approaches adjust sampling constraints online as model parameter estimates are refined, continually maximizing expected information gained or variance reduced. We apply adaptive Bayesian inference to estimate transition rates of Markov chains, a common class of models for stochastic processes in nature. Unlike most previous studies, our…
We consider the problem of constructing Bayesian based confidence sets for linear functionals in the inverse Gaussian white noise model. We work with a scale of Gaussian priors indexed by a regularity hyper-parameter and apply the data-driven (slightly modified) marginal likelihood empirical Bayes method for the choice of this hyper-parameter. We show by theory and simulations that the credible sets constructed by this method have sub-optimal behaviour in general. However, by assuming "self-similarity" the credible sets have rate-adaptive size and optimal coverage. As an application of these r…
The MC$^3$ (Madigan and York, 1995) and Gibbs (George and McCulloch, 1997) samplers are the most widely implemented algorithms for Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) in linear regression models. These samplers draw a variable at random in each iteration using uniform selection probabilities and then propose to update that variable. This may be computationally inefficient if the number of variables is large and many variables are redundant. In this work, we introduce adaptive versions of these samplers that retain their simplicity in implementation and reduce the selection probabilities of the many…
Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) is a family of computational techniques in Bayesian statistics. These techniques allow to fi t a model to data without relying on the computation of the model likelihood. They instead require to simulate a large number of times the model to be fi tted. A number of re finements to the original rejection-based ABC scheme have been proposed, including the sequential improvement of posterior distributions. This technique allows to de- crease the number of model simulations required, but it still presents several shortcomings which are particu- larly problemat…
We investigate the problem of deriving adaptive posterior rates of contraction on $\mathbb{L}^{\infty}$ balls in density estimation. Although it is known that log-density priors can achieve optimal rates when the true density is sufficiently smooth, adaptive rates were still to be proven. Here we establish that the so-called spike-and-slab prior can achieve adaptive and optimal posterior contraction rates. Along the way, we prove a generic $\mathbb{L}^{\infty}$ contraction result for log-density priors with independent wavelet coefficients. Interestingly, our approach is different from previou…
In developing products for rare diseases, statistical challenges arise due to the limited number of patients available for participation in drug trials and other clinical research. Bayesian adaptive clinical trial designs offer the possibility of increased statistical efficiency, reduced development cost and ethical hazard prevention via their incorporation of evidence from external sources (historical data, expert opinions, and real-world evidence), and flexibility in the specification of interim looks. In this paper, we propose a novel Bayesian adaptive commensurate design that borrows adapt…
