The reparameterization gradient has become a widely used method to obtain Monte Carlo gradients to optimize the variational objective. However, this technique does not easily apply to commonly used distributions such as beta or gamma without further approximations, and most practical applications of the reparameterizat…
Paper generalizes reparameterization trick for broader applicability.
problem Limited applicability of reparameterization trick to specific distributions.
method Introduces a generalized transformation-based gradient method.
result Proposed model combines advantages of control variates and generalized reparameterization.
Reparameterizes mirror descent as gradient descent for efficient sparse learning.
problem Efficiently training small sparse networks with mirror descent.
method Develops a framework to convert mirror descent updates into gradient descent updates on different parameters.
result Mirror descent can be reparameterized as gradient descent on modified parameters, facilitating standard backpropagation.
REP-GAN improves GANs by reparameterizing proposals for better sample quality and efficiency.
problem Poor sample efficiency in GANs due to independent proposal sampling.
method REParameterizing Markov chains into the latent space of the generator to create dependent proposals.
result Empirically shows significant improvement in sample efficiency and quality.
Variational inference using the reparameterization trick has enabled large-scale approximate Bayesian inference in complex probabilistic models, leveraging stochastic optimization to sidestep intractable expectations. The reparameterization trick is applicable when we can simulate a random variable by applying a differ…
By providing a simple and efficient way of computing low-variance gradients of continuous random variables, the reparameterization trick has become the technique of choice for training a variety of latent variable models. However, it is not applicable to a number of important continuous distributions. We introduce an a…
New flatness measure for neural nets is invariant to reparameterizations.
problem Lack of invariance in existing flatness measures to reparameterizations.
method Proposed a reparameterization-invariant flatness measure.
result The new flatness measure correlates with generalization error.
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.
Two new estimators improve VAE training for hierarchical and prior parameters.
problem Efficient gradient estimation for VAEs with hierarchical and prior parameters.
method Developed two generalizations of Doubly-Reparameterized Gradient Estimators (DReGs) for VAEs.
result Improved training of conditional and hierarchical VAEs on image modeling tasks.
We observe that gradients computed via the reparameterization trick are in direct correspondence with solutions of the transport equation in the formalism of optimal transport. We use this perspective to compute (approximate) pathwise gradients for probability distributions not directly amenable to the reparameterizati…
A new method reparameterizes Gaussian noise for better flexibility and performance.
problem Improving the Gumbel-Softmax for better flexibility and performance.
method Invertible Gaussian Reparameterization (IGR) using modified softmax and transformations.
result IGR outperforms Gumbel-Softmax in various experiments.
The reparameterization trick is widely used in variational inference as it yields more accurate estimates of the gradient of the variational objective than alternative approaches such as the score function method. Although there is overwhelming empirical evidence in the literature showing its success, there is relative…
Low-variance gradient estimation is crucial for learning directed graphical models parameterized by neural networks, where the reparameterization trick is widely used for those with continuous variables. While this technique gives low-variance gradient estimates, it has not been directly applicable to discrete variable…
A new method for stochastic optimal control improves accuracy over existing techniques.
problem Improving the accuracy of stochastic optimal control for noisy systems.
method Stochastic Optimal Control Matching (SOCM) using Iterative Diffusion Optimization (IDO) with path-wise reparameterization trick.
result SOCM achieves lower error than existing techniques for three out of four control problems, sometimes by an order of magnitude.
Geometric correspondence links flow metrics to reparameterizations.
problem Linking flow metrics to reparameterizations of geodesic flows.
method Analysis of Mineyev's flow space and Green metrics.
result First examples of continuous reparameterizations on negatively curved manifolds.
New measure of maximal entropy found for a class of geometrically finite groups.
problem Finding a measure of maximal entropy for relatively Anosov groups.
method Constructing reparameterizations and using exponential expansion along unstable foliations.
result The Bowen-Margulis-Sullivan measure is finite and unique for relatively Anosov groups.
The paper addresses the invariance issue in Bayesian neural networks using linearized Laplace approximation.
problem Bayesian neural networks fail to maintain invariance under reparameterization, leading to different posterior densities for identical functions.
method Developed a geometric view of reparameterizations and a Riemannian diffusion process to extend reparameterization invariance to neural network predictive.
result Empirically improved posterior fit through approximate posterior sampling.
Paper presents a reparameterized DP-DLGMM for clustering.
problem Non-parametric DP priors in DLGMM are hard to couple with variational inference.
method Closed-form updates for DP-DLGMM's variational posterior.
result Model generates realistic samples and performs competitively in semi-supervised settings.
Bayesian optimization is a sample-efficient approach to solving global optimization problems. Along with a surrogate model, this approach relies on theoretically motivated value heuristics (acquisition functions) to guide the search process. Maximizing acquisition functions yields the best performance; unfortunately, t…
Conventional prior for Variational Auto-Encoder (VAE) is a Gaussian distribution. Recent works demonstrated that choice of prior distribution affects learning capacity of VAE models. We propose a general technique (embedding-reparameterization procedure, or ER) for introducing arbitrary manifold-valued variables in VAE…
The reparameterization trick enables optimizing large scale stochastic computation graphs via gradient descent. The essence of the trick is to refactor each stochastic node into a differentiable function of its parameters and a random variable with fixed distribution. After refactoring, the gradients of the loss propag…
We investigate a local reparameterizaton technique for greatly reducing the variance of stochastic gradients for variational Bayesian inference (SGVB) of a posterior over model parameters, while retaining parallelizability. This local reparameterization translates uncertainty about global parameters into local noise th…
This research simplifies verification of machine learning systems using reparameterization.
problem Reduce or eliminate serious bugs in machine learning systems.
method Use proof assistants to construct machine-checked proofs of correctness, leveraging reparameterization to handle probabilistic claims.
result Demonstrates broad applicability of reparameterization to verify different types of machine learning systems.
We present a new algorithm for stochastic variational inference that targets at models with non-differentiable densities. One of the key challenges in stochastic variational inference is to come up with a low-variance estimator of the gradient of a variational objective. We tackle the challenge by generalizing the repa…
STR reparameterizes DNN weights with soft thresholds for better sparsity and accuracy.
problem Improving sparsity in DNNs for better accuracy and lower inference cost.
method Soft Threshold Reparameterization (STR) using the soft-threshold operator on DNN weights.
result STR achieves state-of-the-art accuracy and reduces FLOPs by up to 50%.
Recent breakthroughs in computer vision make use of large deep neural networks, utilizing the substantial speedup offered by GPUs. For applications running on limited hardware, however, high precision real-time processing can still be a challenge. One approach to solving this problem is training networks with binary or…
We stabilize the Kumaraswamy distribution for efficient sampling and differentiation.
problem Numerical instabilities in the Kumaraswamy distribution's inverse CDF and log-pdf.
method Identified and resolved numerical issues, introduced a stabilized KS distribution.
result Stabilized Kumaraswamy distribution supports efficient sampling and differentiation.
Optimization with noisy gradients has become ubiquitous in statistics and machine learning. Reparameterization gradients, or gradient estimates computed via the "reparameterization trick," represent a class of noisy gradients often used in Monte Carlo variational inference (MCVI). However, when these gradient estimator…
New method enhances model fine-tuning with minimal data.
problem Improving model performance on new tasks with limited data.
method Introducing α-LoRA, a reparameterization method for fine-tuning. result Enhanced generalization ability of fine-tuned models.
Unified view of LR and RP gradients explained via divergence theorem.
problem Explaining the nature and relationship of LR and RP gradients.
method First principles approach using divergence theorem.
result Characterization of all possible estimators combining LR and RP.
Paper tackles performative prediction without convexity assumptions.
problem Performative prediction where data distribution changes with model deployment.
method Reparameterization framework to transform non-convex objective into convex one.
result Provably sublinear regret guarantees for learnable model.
Investigates how flatness of loss curve relates to generalization in machine learning models.
problem Understanding why flatness correlates with generalization in machine learning models.
method Relates flatness to interpolation from representative data, derives notions of representativeness and feature robustness.
result Derives a novel relative flatness measure that correlates with generalization and solves reparameterization issues.
EXPO framework eliminates need for reward model, achieving better optimization.
problem Optimizing large language model responses without a separate reward model.
method Introduces EXPO framework that avoids reparameterization, directly optimizing preferences.
result Demonstrates better regularization and intuitive interpolation behaviors.
New method for analyzing learning dynamics in singular models.
problem Challenges in analyzing learning of singular models with no one-to-one parameter space.
method Relative reparameterization technique to extract regular sub-models.
result Demonstrated differences in convergence behavior due to algorithmic and intrinsic aspects.
New method improves imitation learning from expert observations.
problem Challenges in imitation learning from observation setting.
method Reparameterized Variational Divergence Minimization.
result Our method outperforms baseline approaches in low-dimensional tasks.
This paper focuses on the study of open curves in a manifold M, and proposes a reparameterization invariant metric on the space of such paths. We use the square root velocity function (SRVF) introduced by Srivastava et al. in [11] to define a reparameterization invariant metric on the space of immersions M' = Imm([0,1]…
Reparameterizable densities are an important way to learn probability distributions in a deep learning setting. For many distributions it is possible to create low-variance gradient estimators by utilizing a `reparameterization trick'. Due to the absence of a general reparameterization trick, much research has recently…
Gradient descent implicitly favors group sparsity in neural networks.
problem Understanding implicit regularization in neural networks for structured sparsity.
method Novel neural reparameterization for diagonally grouped linear networks.
result Gradient descent without explicit regularization biases towards group sparsity.
DiMS sampler explores neural network loss minima via dissipative dynamics.
problem Sampling reparameterization invariant solutions in neural networks.
method Dynamical system based on kinetic energy with dissipative friction.
result DiMS sampler samples exactly from minimum level sets.
Natural gradient descent is a robust optimization method for machine learning.
problem Training poorly parameterized networks efficiently.
method Optimization algorithms with natural transformation properties.
result Optimization algorithms with natural transformation properties are more efficient for poorly parameterized networks.
Extends Stein's lemma to exponential-family mixtures for gradient computation.
problem Computing gradients for complex distributions with weak assumptions.
method Generalizes Stein's lemma to exponential-family mixtures and applies it to reparameterization trick.
result Derives new gradient identities for various distributions.
New gradient estimators for discrete variables improve model training.
problem Training models with discrete latent variables is challenging due to high gradient variance.
method Introduced novel gradient estimators based on importance sampling and statistical couplings, extending to categorical variables.
result Proposed gradient estimators outperform previous methods in systematic experiments.
LEARN-SAM improves RL from sub-optimal demonstrations by localizing expert policies and selectively using demonstrations.
problem Improving RL from sub-optimal or sparse demonstrations.
method Local Ensemble and Reparameterization with Split and Merge of expert policies (LEARN-SAM).
result LEARN-SAM boosts learning speed and accuracy by selectively using demonstrations.
Structural optimization is a popular method for designing objects such as bridge trusses, airplane wings, and optical devices. Unfortunately, the quality of solutions depends heavily on how the problem is parameterized. In this paper, we propose using the implicit bias over functions induced by neural networks to impro…
A novel method for feature selection using a reparameterized logitNormal distribution.
problem Feature selection for reconstruction in high-dimensional data.
method Introducing a reparameterization of the logitNormal distribution to address differentiability and covariance issues.
result The method provides an effective exploration scheme and efficient feature selection for reconstruction.
This work improves variational inference by reducing gradient variance.
problem Hard optimization of flexible variational distributions.
method Control variate based on quadratic approximation of the model's mean and covariance.
result Significant improvement in gradient variance and optimization convergence.
Bayesian optimization tackles expensive discrete and mixed parameter spaces.
problem Optimizing expensive functions with discrete and mixed parameters.
method Probabilistic reparameterization to maximize expectation of AF over continuous parameters.
result Our approach provably converges to a maximizer of the AF and enjoys the same regret bounds as standard BO.
A new variational method for SSMs improves inference efficiency.
problem Hard variational inference for state space models.
method Proposes variational marginal particle filter (VMPF) based on Rao-Blackwellization.
result VMPF provides tighter variational bounds and sometimes benefits from unbiased reparameterization.