Nonparametric Estimation of Multi-View Latent Variable Models

Spectral methods have greatly advanced the estimation of latent variable models, generating a sequence of novel and efficient algorithms with strong theoretical guarantees. However, current spectral algorithms are largely restricted to mixtures of discrete or Gaussian distributions. In this paper, we propose a kernel method for learning multi-view latent variable models, allowing each mixture component to be nonparametric. The key idea of the method is to embed the joint distribution of a multi-view latent variable into a reproducing kernel Hilbert space, and then the latent parameters are recovered using a robust tensor power method. We establish that the sample complexity for the proposed method is quadratic in the number of latent components and is a low order polynomial in the other relevant parameters. Thus, our non-parametric tensor approach to learning latent variable models enjoys good sample and computational efficiencies. Moreover, the non-parametric tensor power method compares favorably to EM algorithm and other existing spectral algorithms in our experiments

Graph Kernels

We present a unified framework to study graph kernels, special cases of which include the random walk (Gärtner et al., 2003; Borgwardt et al., 2005) and marginalized (Kashima et al., 2003, 2004; Mahé et al., 2004) graph kernels. Through reduction to a Sylvester equation we improve the time complexity of kernel computation between unlabeled graphs with n vertices from O(n^6) to O(n^3). We find a spectral decomposition approach even more efficient when computing entire kernel matrices. For labeled graphs we develop conjugate gradient and fixed-point methods that take O(dn^3) time per iteration, where d is the size of the label set. By extending the necessary linear algebra to Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces (RKHS) we obtain the same result for d-dimensional edge kernels, and O(n^4) in the infinite-dimensional case; on sparse graphs these algorithms only take O(n^2) time per iteration in all cases. Experiments on graphs from bioinformatics and other application domains show that these techniques can speed up computation of the kernel by an order of magnitude or more. We also show that certain rational kernels (Cortes et al., 2002, 2003, 2004) when specialized to graphs reduce to our random walk graph kernel. Finally, we relate our framework to R-convolution kernels (Haussler, 1999) and provide a kernel that is close to the optimal assignment kernel of Fröhlich et al. (2006) yet provably positive semi-definite

Automatic Verification of Message-Based Device Drivers

We develop a practical solution to the problem of automatic verification of the interface between device drivers and the OS. Our solution relies on a combination of improved driver architecture and verification tools. It supports drivers written in C and can be implemented in any existing OS, which sets it apart from previous proposals for verification-friendly drivers. Our Linux-based evaluation shows that this methodology amplifies the power of existing verification tools in detecting driver bugs, making it possible to verify properties beyond the reach of traditional techniques.Comment: In Proceedings SSV 2012, arXiv:1211.587

Conic Optimization Theory: Convexification Techniques and Numerical Algorithms

Optimization is at the core of control theory and appears in several areas of this field, such as optimal control, distributed control, system identification, robust control, state estimation, model predictive control and dynamic programming. The recent advances in various topics of modern optimization have also been revamping the area of machine learning. Motivated by the crucial role of optimization theory in the design, analysis, control and operation of real-world systems, this tutorial paper offers a detailed overview of some major advances in this area, namely conic optimization and its emerging applications. First, we discuss the importance of conic optimization in different areas. Then, we explain seminal results on the design of hierarchies of convex relaxations for a wide range of nonconvex problems. Finally, we study different numerical algorithms for large-scale conic optimization problems.Comment: 18 page