2,462 research outputs found
Smoothed Analysis of Tensor Decompositions
Low rank tensor decompositions are a powerful tool for learning generative
models, and uniqueness results give them a significant advantage over matrix
decomposition methods. However, tensors pose significant algorithmic challenges
and tensors analogs of much of the matrix algebra toolkit are unlikely to exist
because of hardness results. Efficient decomposition in the overcomplete case
(where rank exceeds dimension) is particularly challenging. We introduce a
smoothed analysis model for studying these questions and develop an efficient
algorithm for tensor decomposition in the highly overcomplete case (rank
polynomial in the dimension). In this setting, we show that our algorithm is
robust to inverse polynomial error -- a crucial property for applications in
learning since we are only allowed a polynomial number of samples. While
algorithms are known for exact tensor decomposition in some overcomplete
settings, our main contribution is in analyzing their stability in the
framework of smoothed analysis.
Our main technical contribution is to show that tensor products of perturbed
vectors are linearly independent in a robust sense (i.e. the associated matrix
has singular values that are at least an inverse polynomial). This key result
paves the way for applying tensor methods to learning problems in the smoothed
setting. In particular, we use it to obtain results for learning multi-view
models and mixtures of axis-aligned Gaussians where there are many more
"components" than dimensions. The assumption here is that the model is not
adversarially chosen, formalized by a perturbation of model parameters. We
believe this an appealing way to analyze realistic instances of learning
problems, since this framework allows us to overcome many of the usual
limitations of using tensor methods.Comment: 32 pages (including appendix
Smoothed Analysis in Unsupervised Learning via Decoupling
Smoothed analysis is a powerful paradigm in overcoming worst-case
intractability in unsupervised learning and high-dimensional data analysis.
While polynomial time smoothed analysis guarantees have been obtained for
worst-case intractable problems like tensor decompositions and learning
mixtures of Gaussians, such guarantees have been hard to obtain for several
other important problems in unsupervised learning. A core technical challenge
in analyzing algorithms is obtaining lower bounds on the least singular value
for random matrix ensembles with dependent entries, that are given by
low-degree polynomials of a few base underlying random variables.
In this work, we address this challenge by obtaining high-confidence lower
bounds on the least singular value of new classes of structured random matrix
ensembles of the above kind. We then use these bounds to design algorithms with
polynomial time smoothed analysis guarantees for the following three important
problems in unsupervised learning:
1. Robust subspace recovery, when the fraction of inliers in the
d-dimensional subspace is at least for any constant integer . This contrasts with the known
worst-case intractability when , and the previous smoothed
analysis result which needed (Hardt and Moitra, 2013).
2. Learning overcomplete hidden markov models, where the size of the state
space is any polynomial in the dimension of the observations. This gives the
first polynomial time guarantees for learning overcomplete HMMs in a smoothed
analysis model.
3. Higher order tensor decompositions, where we generalize the so-called
FOOBI algorithm of Cardoso to find order- rank-one tensors in a subspace.
This allows us to obtain polynomially robust decomposition algorithms for
'th order tensors with rank .Comment: 44 page
Polynomial-time Tensor Decompositions with Sum-of-Squares
We give new algorithms based on the sum-of-squares method for tensor
decomposition. Our results improve the best known running times from
quasi-polynomial to polynomial for several problems, including decomposing
random overcomplete 3-tensors and learning overcomplete dictionaries with
constant relative sparsity. We also give the first robust analysis for
decomposing overcomplete 4-tensors in the smoothed analysis model. A key
ingredient of our analysis is to establish small spectral gaps in moment
matrices derived from solutions to sum-of-squares relaxations. To enable this
analysis we augment sum-of-squares relaxations with spectral analogs of maximum
entropy constraints.Comment: to appear in FOCS 201
Functional Regression
Functional data analysis (FDA) involves the analysis of data whose ideal
units of observation are functions defined on some continuous domain, and the
observed data consist of a sample of functions taken from some population,
sampled on a discrete grid. Ramsay and Silverman's 1997 textbook sparked the
development of this field, which has accelerated in the past 10 years to become
one of the fastest growing areas of statistics, fueled by the growing number of
applications yielding this type of data. One unique characteristic of FDA is
the need to combine information both across and within functions, which Ramsay
and Silverman called replication and regularization, respectively. This article
will focus on functional regression, the area of FDA that has received the most
attention in applications and methodological development. First will be an
introduction to basis functions, key building blocks for regularization in
functional regression methods, followed by an overview of functional regression
methods, split into three types: [1] functional predictor regression
(scalar-on-function), [2] functional response regression (function-on-scalar)
and [3] function-on-function regression. For each, the role of replication and
regularization will be discussed and the methodological development described
in a roughly chronological manner, at times deviating from the historical
timeline to group together similar methods. The primary focus is on modeling
and methodology, highlighting the modeling structures that have been developed
and the various regularization approaches employed. At the end is a brief
discussion describing potential areas of future development in this field
Tensor decomposition with generalized lasso penalties
We present an approach for penalized tensor decomposition (PTD) that
estimates smoothly varying latent factors in multi-way data. This generalizes
existing work on sparse tensor decomposition and penalized matrix
decompositions, in a manner parallel to the generalized lasso for regression
and smoothing problems. Our approach presents many nontrivial challenges at the
intersection of modeling and computation, which are studied in detail. An
efficient coordinate-wise optimization algorithm for (PTD) is presented, and
its convergence properties are characterized. The method is applied both to
simulated data and real data on flu hospitalizations in Texas. These results
show that our penalized tensor decomposition can offer major improvements on
existing methods for analyzing multi-way data that exhibit smooth spatial or
temporal features
Tensor decompositions for learning latent variable models
This work considers a computationally and statistically efficient parameter
estimation method for a wide class of latent variable models---including
Gaussian mixture models, hidden Markov models, and latent Dirichlet
allocation---which exploits a certain tensor structure in their low-order
observable moments (typically, of second- and third-order). Specifically,
parameter estimation is reduced to the problem of extracting a certain
(orthogonal) decomposition of a symmetric tensor derived from the moments; this
decomposition can be viewed as a natural generalization of the singular value
decomposition for matrices. Although tensor decompositions are generally
intractable to compute, the decomposition of these specially structured tensors
can be efficiently obtained by a variety of approaches, including power
iterations and maximization approaches (similar to the case of matrices). A
detailed analysis of a robust tensor power method is provided, establishing an
analogue of Wedin's perturbation theorem for the singular vectors of matrices.
This implies a robust and computationally tractable estimation approach for
several popular latent variable models
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