Exploring Non-Convex Discrete Energy Landscapes: A Langevin-Like Sampler with Replica Exchange

Gradient-based Discrete Samplers (GDSs) are effective for sampling discrete energy landscapes. However, they often stagnate in complex, non-convex settings. To improve exploration, we introduce the Discrete Replica EXchangE Langevin (DREXEL) sampler and its variant with Adjusted Metropolis (DREAM). These samplers use two GDSs at different temperatures and step sizes: one focuses on local exploitation, while the other explores broader energy landscapes. When energy differences are significant, sample swaps occur, which are determined by a mechanism tailored for discrete sampling to ensure detailed balance. Theoretically, we prove both DREXEL and DREAM converge asymptotically to the target energy and exhibit faster mixing than a single GDS. Experiments further confirm their efficiency in exploring non-convex discrete energy landscapes.

LLM Reasoning Engine: Specialized Training for Enhanced Mathematical Reasoning

Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown remarkable performance in various natural language processing tasks but face challenges in mathematical reasoning, where complex problem-solving requires both linguistic understanding and mathematical reasoning skills. Existing approaches to address this challenge often rely on ensemble methods and suffer from the problem of data scarcity in target domains. In this work, we present a novel method to enhance LLMs' capabilities in mathematical reasoning tasks. Motivated by the need to bridge this gap, our approach incorporates a question paraphrase strategy, which aims at diversifying the linguistic forms of mathematical questions to improve generalization. Additionally, specialized training objectives are employed to guide the model's learning process, focusing on enhancing its understanding of mathematical concepts and reasoning processes. We conduct experiments on four datasets using different LLMs, and demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in improving LLMs' performance on mathematical reasoning tasks. Our findings underscore the significance of our methodology in the advancement of large language models and its potential implications for real-world applications that require mathematical reasoning abilities.

Adversarial Autoencoders in Operator Learning

DeepONets and Koopman autoencoders are two prevalent neural operator architectures. These architectures are autoencoders. An adversarial addition to an autoencoder have improved performance of autoencoders in various areas of machine learning. In this paper, the use an adversarial addition for these two neural operator architectures is studied.

Some Best Practices in Operator Learning

Hyperparameters searches are computationally expensive. This paper studies some general choices of hyperparameters and training methods specifically for operator learning. It considers the architectures DeepONets, Fourier neural operators and Koopman autoencoders for several differential equations to find robust trends. Some options considered are activation functions, dropout and stochastic weight averaging.

Loss Terms and Operator Forms of Koopman Autoencoders

Koopman autoencoders are a prevalent architecture in operator learning. But, the loss functions and the form of the operator vary significantly in the literature. This paper presents a fair and systemic study of these options. Furthermore, it introduces novel loss terms.

DeepONet as a Multi-Operator Extrapolation Model: Distributed Pretraining with Physics-Informed Fine-Tuning

We propose a novel fine-tuning method to achieve multi-operator learning through training a distributed neural operator with diverse function data and then zero-shot fine-tuning the neural network using physics-informed losses for downstream tasks. Operator learning effectively approximates solution operators for PDEs and various PDE-related problems, yet it often struggles to generalize to new tasks. To address this, we investigate fine-tuning a pretrained model, while carefully selecting an initialization that enables rapid adaptation to new tasks with minimal data. Our approach combines distributed learning to integrate data from various operators in pre-training, while physics-informed methods enable zero-shot fine-tuning, minimizing the reliance on downstream data. We investigate standard fine-tuning and Low-Rank Adaptation fine-tuning, applying both to train complex nonlinear target operators that are difficult to learn only using random initialization. Through comprehensive numerical examples, we demonstrate the advantages of our approach, showcasing significant improvements in accuracy. Our findings provide a robust framework for advancing multi-operator learning and highlight the potential of transfer learning techniques in this domain.

An Energy-Based Self-Adaptive Learning Rate for Stochastic Gradient Descent: Enhancing Unconstrained Optimization with VAV method

Optimizing the learning rate remains a critical challenge in machine learning, essential for achieving model stability and efficient convergence. The Vector Auxiliary Variable (VAV) algorithm introduces a novel energy-based self-adjustable learning rate optimization method designed for unconstrained optimization problems. It incorporates an auxiliary variable $r$ to facilitate efficient energy approximation without backtracking while adhering to the unconditional energy dissipation law. Notably, VAV demonstrates superior stability with larger learning rates and achieves faster convergence in the early stage of the training process. Comparative analyses demonstrate that VAV outperforms Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) across various tasks. This paper also provides rigorous proof of the energy dissipation law and establishes the convergence of the algorithm under reasonable assumptions. Additionally, $r$ acts as an empirical lower bound of the training loss in practice, offering a novel scheduling approach that further enhances algorithm performance.

LES-SINDy: Laplace-Enhanced Sparse Identification of Nonlinear Dynamical Systems

Sparse Identification of Nonlinear Dynamical Systems (SINDy) is a powerful tool for the data-driven discovery of governing equations. However, it encounters challenges when modeling complex dynamical systems involving high-order derivatives or discontinuities, particularly in the presence of noise. These limitations restrict its applicability across various fields in applied mathematics and physics. To mitigate these, we propose Laplace-Enhanced SparSe Identification of Nonlinear Dynamical Systems (LES-SINDy). By transforming time-series measurements from the time domain to the Laplace domain using the Laplace transform and integration by parts, LES-SINDy enables more accurate approximations of derivatives and discontinuous terms. It also effectively handles unbounded growth functions and accumulated numerical errors in the Laplace domain, thereby overcoming challenges in the identification process. The model evaluation process selects the most accurate and parsimonious dynamical systems from multiple candidates. Experimental results across diverse ordinary and partial differential equations show that LES-SINDy achieves superior robustness, accuracy, and parsimony compared to existing methods.

Conformalized Prediction of Post-Fault Voltage Trajectories Using Pre-trained and Finetuned Attention-Driven Neural Operators

This paper proposes a new data-driven methodology for predicting intervals of post-fault voltage trajectories in power systems. We begin by introducing the Quantile Attention-Fourier Deep Operator Network (QAF-DeepONet), designed to capture the complex dynamics of voltage trajectories and reliably estimate quantiles of the target trajectory without any distributional assumptions. The proposed operator regression model maps the observed portion of the voltage trajectory to its unobserved post-fault trajectory. Our methodology employs a pre-training and fine-tuning process to address the challenge of limited data availability. To ensure data privacy in learning the pre-trained model, we use merging via federated learning with data from neighboring buses, enabling the model to learn the underlying voltage dynamics from such buses without directly sharing their data. After pre-training, we fine-tune the model with data from the target bus, allowing it to adapt to unique dynamics and operating conditions. Finally, we integrate conformal prediction into the fine-tuned model to ensure coverage guarantees for the predicted intervals. We evaluated the performance of the proposed methodology using the New England 39-bus test system considering detailed models of voltage and frequency controllers. Two metrics, Prediction Interval Coverage Probability (PICP) and Prediction Interval Normalized Average Width (PINAW), are used to numerically assess the model's performance in predicting intervals. The results show that the proposed approach offers practical and reliable uncertainty quantification in predicting the interval of post-fault voltage trajectories.

Where to Build Food Banks and Pantries: A Two-Level Machine Learning Approach

Over 44 million Americans currently suffer from food insecurity, of whom 13 million are children. Across the United States, thousands of food banks and pantries serve as vital sources of food and other forms of aid for food insecure families. By optimizing food bank and pantry locations, food would become more accessible to families who desperately require it. In this work, we introduce a novel two-level optimization framework, which utilizes the K-Medoids clustering algorithm in conjunction with the Open-Source Routing Machine engine, to optimize food bank and pantry locations based on real road distances to houses and house blocks. Our proposed framework also has the adaptability to factor in considerations such as median household income using a pseudo-weighted K-Medoids algorithm. Testing conducted with California and Indiana household data, as well as comparisons with real food bank and pantry locations showed that interestingly, our proposed framework yields food pantry locations superior to those of real existing ones and saves significant distance for households, while there is a marginal penalty on the first level food bank to food pantry distance. Overall, we believe that the second-level benefits of this framework far outweigh any drawbacks and yield a net benefit result.