No Arabic abstract
We propose a class of kernel-based two-sample tests, which aim to determine whether two sets of samples are drawn from the same distribution. Our tests are constructed from kernels parameterized by deep neural nets, trained to maximize test power. These tests adapt to variations in distribution smoothness and shape over space, and are especially suited to high dimensions and complex data. By contrast, the simpler kernels used in prior kernel testing work are spatially homogeneous, and adaptive only in lengthscale. We explain how this scheme includes popular classifier-based two-sample tests as a special case, but improves on them in general. We provide the first proof of consistency for the proposed adaptation method, which applies both to kernels on deep features and to simpler radial basis kernels or multiple kernel learning. In experiments, we establish the superior performance of our deep kernels in hypothesis testing on benchmark and real-world data. The code of our deep-kernel-based two sample tests is available at https://github.com/fengliu90/DK-for-TST.
We propose a two-sample testing procedure based on learned deep neural network representations. To this end, we define two test statistics that perform an asymptotic location test on data samples mapped onto a hidden layer. The tests are consistent and asymptotically control the type-1 error rate. Their test statistics can be evaluated in linear time (in the sample size). Suitable data representations are obtained in a data-driven way, by solving a supervised or unsupervised transfer-learning task on an auxiliary (potentially distinct) data set. If no auxiliary data is available, we split the data into two chunks: one for learning representations and one for computing the test statistic. In experiments on audio samples, natural images and three-dimensional neuroimaging data our tests yield significant decreases in type-2 error rate (up to 35 percentage points) compared to state-of-the-art two-sample tests such as kernel-methods and classifier two-sample tests.
We present a study of kernel MMD two-sample test statistics in the manifold setting, assuming the high-dimensional observations are close to a low-dimensional manifold. We characterize the property of the test (level and power) in relation to the kernel bandwidth, the number of samples, and the intrinsic dimensionality of the manifold. Specifically, we show that when data densities are supported on a $d$-dimensional sub-manifold $mathcal{M}$ embedded in an $m$-dimensional space, the kernel MMD two-sample test for data sampled from a pair of distributions $(p, q)$ that are Holder with order $beta$ is consistent and powerful when the number of samples $n$ is greater than $delta_2(p,q)^{-2-d/beta}$ up to certain constant, where $delta_2$ is the squared $ell_2$-divergence between two distributions on manifold. Moreover, to achieve testing consistency under this scaling of $n$, our theory suggests that the kernel bandwidth $gamma$ scales with $n^{-1/(d+2beta)}$. These results indicate that the kernel MMD two-sample test does not have a curse-of-dimensionality when the data lie on the low-dimensional manifold. We demonstrate the validity of our theory and the property of the MMD test for manifold data using several numerical experiments.
Modern kernel-based two-sample tests have shown great success in distinguishing complex, high-dimensional distributions with appropriate learned kernels. Previous work has demonstrated that this kernel learning procedure succeeds, assuming a considerable number of observed samples from each distribution. In realistic scenarios with very limited numbers of data samples, however, it can be challenging to identify a kernel powerful enough to distinguish complex distributions. We address this issue by introducing the problem of meta two-sample testing (M2ST), which aims to exploit (abundant) auxiliary data on related tasks to find an algorithm that can quickly identify a powerful test on new target tasks. We propose two specific algorithms for this task: a generic scheme which improves over baselines and amore tailored approach which performs even better. We provide both theoretical justification and empirical evidence that our proposed meta-testing schemes out-perform learning kernel-based tests directly from scarce observations, and identify when such schemes will be successful.
By redefining the conventional notions of layers, we present an alternative view on finitely wide, fully trainable deep neural networks as stacked linear models in feature spaces, leading to a kernel machine interpretation. Based on this construction, we then propose a provably optimal modular learning framework for classification that does not require between-module backpropagation. This modular approach brings new insights into the label requirement of deep learning: It leverages only implicit pairwise labels (weak supervision) when learning the hidden modules. When training the output module, on the other hand, it requires full supervision but achieves high label efficiency, needing as few as 10 randomly selected labeled examples (one from each class) to achieve 94.88% accuracy on CIFAR-10 using a ResNet-18 backbone. Moreover, modular training enables fully modularized deep learning workflows, which then simplify the design and implementation of pipelines and improve the maintainability and reusability of models. To showcase the advantages of such a modularized workflow, we describe a simple yet reliable method for estimating reusability of pre-trained modules as well as task transferability in a transfer learning setting. At practically no computation overhead, it precisely described the task space structure of 15 binary classification tasks from CIFAR-10.
We present a methodology for integrating functional data into deep densely connected feed-forward neural networks. The model is defined for scalar responses with multiple functional and scalar covariates. A by-product of the method is a set of dynamic functional weights that can be visualized during the optimization process. This visualization leads to greater interpretability of the relationship between the covariates and the response relative to conventional neural networks. The model is shown to perform well in a number of contexts including prediction of new data and recovery of the true underlying functional weights; these results were confirmed through real applications and simulation studies. A forthcoming R package is developed on top of a popular deep learning library (Keras) allowing for general use of the approach.