A new gradient estimator for categorical distributions reduces bias and variance.
problem Intractability of gradients for categorical distributions in discrete latent variable models.
method CatLog-Derivative trick and IndeCateR gradient estimator.
result IndeCateR reduces bias and variance of gradients for categorical distributions.
Categorical variables are a natural choice for representing discrete structure in the world. However, stochastic neural networks rarely use categorical latent variables due to the inability to backpropagate through samples. In this work, we present an efficient gradient estimator that replaces the non-differentiable sa…
A framework estimates categorical distributions under constraints, ensuring generality and uniqueness.
problem Estimating categorical distributions summarizing sample data under marginal constraints.
method Theoretical framework + Iterative Proportional Fitting (IPF) to estimate the distribution.
result A unique categorical distribution of Maximum Entropy under marginal constraints exists and is estimated.
Researchers study the normalizing constant of a continuous categorical distribution.
problem Understanding the normalizing constant of the continuous categorical distribution.
method Characterize numerical behavior and present theoretical and methodological advances.
result The normalizing constant can be written in closed form using elementary functions.
AdaCat improves density estimation and planning in autoregressive models.
problem Efficiently modeling sharp density changes in continuous data.
method Adaptive Categorical Discretization (AdaCat) for autoregressive models.
result Improves density estimation and planning in various data types.
A new method for optimizing models with categorical variables using diffusion.
problem Optimizing models with categorical variables, especially in discrete distributions.
method Introducing ReDGE, a diffusion-based soft reparameterization method for categorical distributions.
result ReDGE consistently matches or outperforms existing gradient-based methods in experiments.
We consider the problem of sequential learning from categorical observations bounded in [0,1]. We establish an ordering between the Dirichlet posterior over categorical outcomes and a Gaussian posterior under observations with N(0,1) noise. We establish that, conditioned upon identical data with at least two observatio…
A new method for categorical variational inference using discrete normalizing flows.
problem Challenges in optimizing variational approximations for discrete latent variables.
method Differentiable reparameterization using a mixture of discrete normalizing flows.
result Improves optimization of evidence lower bound and reduces sensitivity to hyperparameters.
Generative model for high-dimensional categorical data using Gaussian-Dirichlet fields.
problem Efficiently modeling and predicting high-dimensional categorical data.
method Combines Dirichlet and Gaussian processes for spatio-temporal modeling.
result Model accurately approximates categorical data in unobserved locations.
CADM proposes a cluster-specific distance metric for categorical data clustering.
problem Inadequate distance metrics for categorical data, especially varying within clusters.
method Cluster-customized adaptive distance metric for categorical data.
result Achieved competitive performance in categorical data clustering.
UNTIE learns representations of coupled categorical data.
problem Challenges in learning from unlabeled categorical data with complex couplings.
method UNTIE approach for unsupervised representation learning of heterogeneous couplings.
result UNTIE significantly improves categorical data representations on 25 diverse datasets.
Distributional approaches to value-based reinforcement learning model the entire distribution of returns, rather than just their expected values, and have recently been shown to yield state-of-the-art empirical performance. This was demonstrated by the recently proposed C51 algorithm, based on categorical distributiona…
New RL algorithm minimizes distributional learning error.
problem Improving distributional reinforcement learning for better error minimization.
method Proposes a new model-based algorithm with theoretical minimax optimality.
result Proves minimax optimality for approximating return distributions.
Paper introduces new methods for modeling categorical data.
problem Training generative models on categorical data like text and segmentation.
method Argmax Flows and Multinomial Diffusion models.
result Models outperform existing methods in log-likelihood.
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.
Multivariate categorical data occur in many applications of machine learning. One of the main difficulties with these vectors of categorical variables is sparsity. The number of possible observations grows exponentially with vector length, but dataset diversity might be poor in comparison. Recent models have gained sig…
A new method uses Mean Field Games to optimize mixture models of Bernoulli and categorical distributions.
problem Optimizing parameters of finite mixture models of Bernoulli and categorical distributions.
method Mean Field Games theory applied to multi-population systems.
result The Mean Field Games approach provides a method to compute mixture model parameters.
Categorical distributions are ubiquitous in machine learning, e.g., in classification, language models, and recommendation systems. However, when the number of possible outcomes is very large, using categorical distributions becomes computationally expensive, as the complexity scales linearly with the number of outcome…
Gradient-based methods can be biased by distributional asymmetries in bivariate categorical data.
problem Gradient-based causal discovery methods can be biased by distributional asymmetries in bivariate categorical data.
method Identified and examined two distributional biases: Marginal Distribution Asymmetry and Marginal Distribution Shift Asymmetry. Employed two simple models to demonstrate and control these biases.
result Gradient-based methods can be biased by distributional asymmetries, and these biases can be controlled.
Applied Data Scientists throughout various industries are commonly faced with the challenging task of encoding high-cardinality categorical features into digestible inputs for machine learning algorithms. This paper describes a Bayesian encoding technique developed for WeWork's lead scoring engine which outputs the pro…
In this work we present Discrete Attend Infer Repeat (Discrete-AIR), a Recurrent Auto-Encoder with structured latent distributions containing discrete categorical distributions, continuous attribute distributions, and factorised spatial attention. While inspired by the original AIR model andretaining AIR model's capabi…
A new method clusters categorical data by learning their optimal order and distance.
problem Clustering categorical data lacks a well-defined metric space.
method Order distance metric learning for categorical data.
result Superior clustering accuracy on categorical and mixed datasets.
We solve the ANOVA decomposition for categorical inputs.
problem Lack of a closed-form expression for ANOVA decomposition with categorical dependent variables.
method Bridge functional analysis with discrete Fourier analysis to derive a closed-form decomposition.
result Closed-form decomposition for categorical inputs without assumptions.
Categorical d-separation criterion simplifies probability graph analysis.
problem Detecting causal relationships in probability distributions.
method Introducing categorical definitions for causal models and d-separation.
result Abstract version of d-separation criterion applies to various probability theories.
New method learns disentangled discrete representations using categorical variational autoencoders.
problem Learning disentangled representations from discrete latent spaces.
method Replaced standard Gaussian VAE with a categorical VAE to mitigate rotational invariance.
result Categorical distributions improve learning of disentangled representations.
Simplex-valued data appear throughout statistics and machine learning, for example in the context of transfer learning and compression of deep networks. Existing models for this class of data rely on the Dirichlet distribution or other related loss functions; here we show these standard choices suffer systematically fr…
A new model estimates mixed memberships for categorical data with weighted responses.
problem Limited applicability of existing GoM model to weighted categorical data.
method Proposes Weighted Grade of Membership (WGoM) model, relaxing distribution constraints.
result WGoM can describe any response matrix with finite distinct elements.
Efficiently models categorical data with low to medium class overlap, improving accuracy over standard distributions.
problem Poor parameter estimates and accuracy in multinomial and Dirichlet multinomial distributions when assumptions are violated.
method Introduces Beta-Liouville multinomial distribution and efficient estimation methods.
result Beta-Liouville multinomial outperforms standard distributions on two out of four datasets.
The article compares predictor importance in classification problems with categorical outcomes.
problem Comparing predictor importance in classification problems with categorical response variables.
method The approach is based on the categorical Gini correlation (CGC) and tests differences in CGCs across predictor groups.
result The proposed methodology accommodates predictors of arbitrary and unequal dimensions and allows for dependence between predictor groups.
Novel GLMMNet model tackles high-cardinality categorical features in actuarial applications.
problem Inadequate encoding methods for high-cardinality categorical features in actuarial data.
method Generalised Linear Mixed Model Neural Network (GLMMNet) integrating a generalised linear mixed model in a deep learning framework.
result GLMMNet often outperforms or performs comparably with entity embedded neural networks, providing transparency.
Enhanced reinforcement learning using ensemble methods.
problem Improving reinforcement learning performance.
method Distributional reinforcement learning with ensemble group-aided training.
result Ensemble methods lead to more robust and efficient learning.
A new method for Gaussian process regression with categorical inputs.
problem Challenges in building a predictive and computationally efficient Gaussian process with categorical inputs.
method Distributional encoding based on maximum mean discrepancy and Wasserstein distance.
result State-of-the-art predictive performance on various datasets.
The Gumbel-max trick and its extensions simplify sampling from categorical distributions in machine learning.
problem Sampling from categorical distributions with unnormalized probabilities.
method Extensions of the Gumbel-max trick for various applications.
result Simplified and efficient methods for sampling and gradient estimation.
Stratified models are models that depend in an arbitrary way on a set of selected categorical features, and depend linearly on the other features. In a basic and traditional formulation a separate model is fit for each value of the categorical feature, using only the data that has the specific categorical value. To thi…
Improves robustness of information bottleneck framework with sparsity-inducing prior.
problem Fixed-dimensional priors restrict flexibility and restrict robustness.
method Sparsity-inducing spike-slab categorical prior that learns dimension distribution per data point.
result Improves accuracy and robustness compared to traditional priors and other methods.
Efficient algorithm for Bayesian networks reduces marginal probability distribution computation.
problem Exact computation of marginal probability distribution is NP-hard for categorical variables in Bayesian networks.
method Divide-and-conquer approach exploiting graphical properties of Bayesian networks.
result Novel algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art methods in classification and cancer subtype identification.
AdOBEst-LDP improves privacy-preserving frequency estimation for categorical data.
problem Estimating categorical distributions online while preserving privacy.
method AdOBEst-LDP uses adaptive randomized response mechanism to enhance future data utility.
result AdOBEst-LDP selects optimal subset for LDP mechanism with high probability.
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.
Three bootstrap tests compare categorical time series generating processes.
problem Testing equality of generating processes in categorical time series.
method Proposes three tests using dissimilarity measures and bootstrap methods.
result Advantages and disadvantages of each bootstrap method discussed.
The paper constructs Yang-Baxter solutions using categorical augmented racks.
problem Solutions to the Yang-Baxter equation in knot theory.
method Interpreting augmented racks in tensor categories and constructing solutions using quantum heaps and Hopf algebra modules.
result Explicit constructions and infinite families of Yang-Baxter solutions are provided.
Researchers propose better probabilistic models for deep learning.
problem Using cross-entropy loss for non-categorical data.
method Introducing continuous-categorical distribution and proposing probabilistic alternatives.
result Potential for outperformance in deep learning models with proper probabilistic treatment.
Gryffin optimizes categorical variables in materials design, leveraging expert knowledge.
problem Optimizing categorical variables in complex design choices like molecule selection.
method Bayesian optimization with smooth approximations to categorical distributions, incorporating expert knowledge.
result Gryffin accelerates discovery of promising molecules and materials, highlighting relevant correlations.
We propose a new model for supervised learning to rank. In our model, the relevance labels are assumed to follow a categorical distribution whose probabilities are constructed based on a scoring function. We optimize the training objective with respect to the multivariate categorical variables with an unbiased and low-…
A new, efficient k-modes algorithm improves clustering of categorical data.
problem Clustering categorical data using existing methods like k-means is inefficient. method Developed a novel k-modes algorithm called OTQT, which improves on existing methods. result OTQT finds more accurate clusters per iteration and is faster overall.
Unified discrete diffusion for categorical data simplifies training and sampling.
problem Training and sampling in discrete diffusion models for categorical data.
method Mathematical simplifications and elegant unification of discrete-time and continuous-time discrete diffusion.
result Unified Simplified Discrete Denoising Diffusion (USD3) outperforms SOTA baselines.
New framework detects outliers in non-IID categorical data.
problem Existing outlier detection methods fail in non-IID data.
method Value-value graph-based representation and outlierness propagation.
result Significant improvement in AUC on complex data sets.
A method for diffusion on probability simplex for generative models.
problem Tension between continuous and discrete data in diffusion models.
method Proposes using softmax function applied to Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Process on probability simplex.
result Method extends to bounded image generation.
The paper proposes a method to analyze categorical feature interactions in large datasets using graph covariance and LLMs.
problem Analyzing complex datasets with numerous categorical features and timestamps.
method Binarization of categorical features using one-hot encoding, computation of graph covariance, identifying significant feature pairs, and using LLMs to generate explanations.
result The method identifies meaningful feature pairs and potential data stories underlying categorical feature interactions.