The study compares clustering risk in Hidden Markov and i.i.d. models, showing the Bayes classifier is nearly optimal.
problem Comparing clustering risk in Hidden Markov and i.i.d. models.
method Analysis of Bayes risk, theoretical bounds, and simulations.
result The Bayes classifier is nearly optimal for clustering in both Hidden Markov and i.i.d. models.
We study the rates of convergence from empirical surrogate risk minimizers to the Bayes optimal classifier. Specifically, we introduce the notion of \emph{consistency intensity} to characterize a surrogate loss function and exploit this notion to obtain the rate of convergence from an empirical surrogate risk minimizer…
Proposes a non-convex optimization method for a parsimonious weighted naive Bayes classifier.
problem Improving naïve Bayes classifier performance with a large number of input variables.
method Sparse regularization of model log-likelihood for direct estimation of variable weights.
result Optimization-based weighted naïve Bayes classifiers achieve equivalent performance to averaging-based classifiers.
Unified framework for Bayes-optimal classifiers under group fairness.
problem Mitigating disparate impacts from algorithmic predictions in high-stakes decision-making.
method Unified framework based on Neyman-Pearson argument for deriving Bayes-optimal classifiers under group fairness constraints.
result Proposes FairBayes method that directly controls disparity and achieves optimal fairness-accuracy tradeoff.
The paper tackles fair classification with multiple sensitive features.
problem Existing fair classification methods often consider a single sensitive feature, but in practice, individuals are defined by multiple sensitive features.
method Characterizes Bayes-optimal fair classifiers for multiple sensitive features under various fairness measures, proposing in-processing and post-processing algorithms.
result Bayes-optimal fair classifiers for multiple sensitive features are instance-dependent thresholding rules that rely on a weighted sum of group membership probabilities.
Study on conditions for Bayes optimal classifier in adversarial robustness.
problem Existence of Bayes optimal classifier for adversarial robustness.
method General sufficient conditions for existence of Bayes optimal classifier.
result Guaranteed existence of Bayes optimal classifier under certain conditions.
Study shows how classifiers can approach Bayes error in high-dimensional settings.
problem Generalization error in high-dimensional perceptrons.
method Proved a formula for generalization error using convex optimization and observed that logistic and hinge regression can approach Bayes error closely.
result Logistic and hinge regression can approach Bayes-optimal generalization error closely in high-dimensional settings.
Since the discovery of adversarial examples - the ability to fool modern CNN classifiers with tiny perturbations of the input, there has been much discussion whether they are a "bug" that is specific to current neural architectures and training methods or an inevitable "feature" of high dimensional geometry. In this pa…
The paper proves statistical consistency and fairness guarantees for a plug-in algorithm.
problem Establishing statistical guarantees for fairness-aware binary classification.
method Proves statistical consistency and derives finite sample guarantees for the plug-in algorithm.
result The plug-in algorithm is statistically consistent and guarantees fairness and differential privacy.
We propose an empirical Bayes estimator based on Dirichlet process mixture model for estimating the sparse normalized mean difference, which could be directly applied to the high dimensional linear classification. In theory, we build a bridge to connect the estimation error of the mean difference and the misclassificat…
New uniqueness concept for adversarial Bayes classifier.
problem Understanding adversarial Bayes classifiers in binary classification.
method Developed a new notion of uniqueness and analyzed it for a family of one-dimensional data distributions.
result Improved regularity of adversarial Bayes classifiers as perturbation radius increases.
Develops methods for fair classification under linear disparity constraints.
problem Disparate impacts of machine learning algorithms on protected groups.
method Bayes-optimal fair classification methods via pre-, in-, and post-processing.
result Explicit forms of Bayes-optimal fair classifiers under linear disparity measures.
Classical clustering algorithms typically either lack an underlying probability framework to make them predictive or focus on parameter estimation rather than defining and minimizing a notion of error. Recent work addresses these issues by developing a probabilistic framework based on the theory of random labeled point…
Paper estimates FPR of Bayes classifier using soft labels.
problem Determining optimal classifier performance.
method Uses soft labels and denoising technique.
result Consistent and unbiased FPR estimator developed.
The study sets limits on how robust classifiers can be against adversarial attacks.
problem Understanding the limits of robustness in classification models against adversarial attacks.
method Utilized optimal transport theory to derive variational formulae and explicit lower-bounds on Bayes-optimal error.
result Explicit lower-bounds on the Bayes-optimal error for distance-based attacks, universal in geometry of class-conditional distributions.
We address the problem of learning to benchmark the best achievable classifier performance. In this problem the objective is to establish statistically consistent estimates of the Bayes misclassification error rate without having to learn a Bayes-optimal classifier. Our learning to benchmark framework improves on previ…
Unified approach for fair classification with overlapping groups.
problem Ensuring fairness across multiple overlapping groups in prediction problems.
method Probabilistic population analysis leading to Bayes-optimal classifier, unifying existing methods.
result Outperforms baselines in fairness-performance tradeoff on real datasets.
The paper explores robust classifiers for imbalanced Gaussian data.
problem Adversarial robustness in machine learning with imbalanced data.
method Developed exact and approximate Bayes-optimal robust classifiers for Gaussian classification problems.
result Revealed fundamental tradeoffs between standard and robust accuracy.
PAC-Bayesian framework for fairness in stochastic and deterministic classifiers.
problem Theoretical guarantees on fairness for balancing predictive risk and fairness constraints.
method PAC-Bayesian framework for both stochastic and deterministic classifiers, covering a broad class of fairness measures.
result Derives generalization bounds for fairness, demonstrating tightness with empirical evaluation.
This paper tackles fair Bayes-optimal classifiers under predictive parity, proving their limitations and proposing a new algorithm.
problem Ensuring fair Bayes-optimal classifiers under predictive parity, especially when group performance levels vary widely.
method Proving the limitations of fair Bayes-optimal classifiers under predictive parity and proposing a new adaptive thresholding algorithm, FairBayes-DPP.
result Fair Bayes-optimal classifiers under predictive parity may not hold if group performance levels vary widely, leading to within-group unfairness.
Optimal classifiers derived from GMMs are approximated by deep neural networks.
problem Binary classification of high-dimensional overlapping Gaussian mixtures.
method Closed-form expressions for Bayes optimal decision boundaries derived from GMMs' eigenstructure. Empirical validation through synthetic and real-world data.
result Deep neural networks approximate optimal classifiers for GMMs, with decision thresholds related to covariance eigenvectors.
Improved conformal prediction for better conditional coverage of classifier predictions.
problem Achieving exact conditional coverage in finite samples for prediction sets.
method Developed a variant of conformal prediction targeting coverage conditional on confidence and trust score.
result Empirically improved conditional coverage properties compared to standard conformal prediction.
Meta-learning method improves PU classification performance.
problem Improving binary classifiers from PU data in unseen tasks.
method Adapts model to PU data using related tasks and neural networks.
result Proposed method outperforms existing methods on synthetic and real-world datasets.
We show that Entropy-SGD (Chaudhari et al., 2017), when viewed as a learning algorithm, optimizes a PAC-Bayes bound on the risk of a Gibbs (posterior) classifier, i.e., a randomized classifier obtained by a risk-sensitive perturbation of the weights of a learned classifier. Entropy-SGD works by optimizing the bound's p…
Adversarial consistency depends on the uniqueness of adversarial Bayes classifiers.
problem Consistency of adversarial surrogate losses is not guaranteed.
method Connected consistency of adversarial surrogate losses to the uniqueness of adversarial Bayes classifiers.
result A convex surrogate loss is statistically consistent for adversarial learning if and only if the adversarial Bayes classifier is unique.
This paper improves binary classification methods beyond accuracy, especially in imbalanced datasets.
problem Binary classification performance metrics often fail to reflect real-world consequences, especially in imbalanced datasets.
method Derives a generalized Bayes-optimal classifier from accuracy to any performance metric, removing assumptions and providing finite-sample statistical guarantees.
result Optimal classification performance depends on class imbalance properties, providing new insights and guarantees.
Improved Naive Bayes classifier with neural network models.
problem Limited complexity handling and independence assumption in Naive Bayes.
method Introducing Neural Naive Bayes and Neural Pooled Markov Chain models.
result Error rate reduced by 4.5 on IMDB dataset.
Bayes classifier cannot be learned from noisy labels without knowing noise distribution.
problem Learning a Bayes classifier from noisy labels when the noise distribution is unknown.
method Demonstrates the identifiability issues and proposes a simple algorithm for learning the Bayes decision rule.
result The Bayes decision rule is generally unidentified and cannot be learned without knowing the noise distribution.
The paper compares one-hot encoding to Naïve Bayes for categorical variables.
problem Incorrect one-hot encoding affects Naïve Bayes performance.
method Mathematical and experimental analysis of PoB vs. categorical Naïve Bayes.
result Posterior probabilities are usually greater in the PoB case, but agree on the maximum a posteriori class label.
Study on the structure of classifier boundaries in DNA sequencing.
problem Understanding the structure of boundaries in a Bayes classifier for DNA sequencing.
method Examined the structure of the boundary in a Bayes classifier applied to DNA sequencing data. Introduced a new measure of uncertainty, Neighbor Similarity.
result The boundary is large and complex, and Neighbor Similarity effectively measures classifier uncertainty.
Adaptive classifier optimizes high-dimensional data with spiked covariance structure.
problem Classification of high-dimensional data with spiked covariance structure.
method Adaptive classifier that whitens data, screens features, and applies Fisher linear discriminant.
result The classifier is Bayes optimal under certain conditions and performs well on real and synthetic data.
Optimal graph classification uses message-passing neural networks.
problem Node classification on sparse graphs with fixed feature dimensions.
method Asymptotic local Bayes optimality, message-passing graph neural networks.
result Optimal message-passing architecture interpolates between MLP and convolution.
This paper proposes a systematic framework to design a classification model that yields a classifier which optimizes a utility function based on prior knowledge. Specifically, as the data size grows, we prove that the produced classifier asymptotically converges to the optimal classifier, an extended version of the Bay…
Naive Bayes can be used as a discriminative classifier, matching the definition of logistic regression.
problem The definition of generative and discriminative classifiers.
method Comparing Naive Bayes and logistic regression, showing they can be used in either generative or discriminative ways.
result Naive Bayes can be used as a discriminative classifier.
Bayesian network classifiers are used in many fields, and one common class of classifiers are naive Bayes classifiers. In this paper, we introduce an approach for reasoning about Bayesian network classifiers in which we explicitly convert them into Ordered Decision Diagrams (ODDs), which are then used to reason about t…
Uniform Closure Method and Bayes classifier perform similarly in classifying open knots.
problem Classifying knots in open macromolecular chains.
method Used the Bayes MAP classifier and compared it to the Uniform Closure Method.
result Both methods have comparable accuracy and positive predictive value.
The paper derives a formula for factorizing categorical data to improve Bayes classifiers.
problem Improving the accuracy of Bayes classifiers by effectively factoring multidimensional data.
method Derives an explicit formula for calculating the marginal likelihood of a factorized categorical dataset.
result The derived formula can be used to select the best factorization for constructing a Bayes classifier.
This paper proposes an efficient method for calculating Shapley values in Naive Bayes classifiers.
problem The need for explaining machine learning model decisions.
method An exact analytic expression of Shapley values for Naive Bayes classifiers.
result The proposed Shapley values provide informative results with low complexity and low computation time.
Meta learning of optimal classifier error rates allows an experimenter to empirically estimate the intrinsic ability of any estimator to discriminate between two populations, circumventing the difficult problem of estimating the optimal Bayes classifier. To this end we propose a weighted nearest neighbor (WNN) graph es…
In this paper we present a new Bayesian network model for classification that combines the naive-Bayes (NB) classifier and the finite-mixture (FM) classifier. The resulting classifier aims at relaxing the strong assumptions on which the two component models are based, in an attempt to improve on their classification pe…
We present a growing dimension asymptotic formalism. The perspective in this paper is classification theory and we show that it can accommodate probabilistic networks classifiers, including naive Bayes model and its augmented version. When represented as a Bayesian network these classifiers have an important advantage:…
There is a rising interest in studying the robustness of deep neural network classifiers against adversaries, with both advanced attack and defence techniques being actively developed. However, most recent work focuses on discriminative classifiers, which only model the conditional distribution of the labels given the …
We show that a simple modification of the 1-nearest neighbor classifier yields a strongly Bayes consistent learner. Prior to this work, the only strongly Bayes consistent proximity-based method was the k-nearest neighbor classifier, for k growing appropriately with sample size. We will argue that a margin-regularized 1…
We consider using an ensemble of binary classifiers for transductive prediction, when unlabeled test data are known in advance. We derive minimax optimal rules for confidence-rated prediction in this setting. By using PAC-Bayes analysis on these rules, we obtain data-dependent performance guarantees without distributio…
In this paper, we empirically evaluate algorithms for learning four types of Bayesian network (BN) classifiers - Naive-Bayes, tree augmented Naive-Bayes, BN augmented Naive-Bayes and general BNs, where the latter two are learned using two variants of a conditional-independence (CI) based BN-learning algorithm. Experime…
Instance- and Label-dependent label Noise (ILN) widely exists in real-world datasets but has been rarely studied. In this paper, we focus on Bounded Instance- and Label-dependent label Noise (BILN), a particular case of ILN where the label noise rates -- the probabilities that the true labels of examples flip into the …
New algorithms explain Naive Bayes classifiers in polynomial time and delay.
problem Computing explanations for Naive Bayes classifiers efficiently.
method Developed log-linear time and polynomial delay algorithms for PI-explanations.
result Efficiently computed PI-explanations for linear classifiers.
The presence of noisy instances in mobile phone data is a fundamental issue for classifying user phone call behavior (i.e., accept, reject, missed and outgoing), with many potential negative consequences. The classification accuracy may decrease and the complexity of the classifiers may increase due to the number of re…