DIRECT: Deep Discriminative Embedding for Clustering of LIGO Data

In this paper, benefiting from the strong ability of deep neural network in estimating non-linear functions, we propose a discriminative embedding function to be used as a feature extractor for clustering tasks. The trained embedding function transfers knowledge from the domain of a labeled set of morphologically-distinct images, known as classes, to a new domain within which new classes can potentially be isolated and identified. Our target application in this paper is the Gravity Spy Project, which is an effort to characterize transient, non-Gaussian noise present in data from the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO. Accumulating large, labeled sets of noise features and identifying of new classes of noise lead to a better understanding of their origin, which makes their removal from the data and/or detectors possible.

Separation of time scales and direct computation of weights in deep neural networks

Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing our lives at an ever increasing pace. At the heart of this revolution is the recent advancements in deep neural networks (DNN), learning to perform sophisticated, high-level tasks. However, training DNNs requires massive amounts of data and is very computationally intensive. Gaining analytical understanding of the solutions found by DNNs can help us devise more efficient training algorithms, replacing the commonly used mthod of stochastic gradient descent (SGD). We analyze the dynamics of SGD and show that, indeed, direct computation of the solutions is possible in many cases. We show that a high performing setup used in DNNs introduces a separation of time-scales in the training dynamics, allowing SGD to train layers from the lowest (closest to input) to the highest. We then show that for each layer, the distribution of solutions found by SGD can be estimated using a class-based principal component analysis (PCA) of the layer's input. This finding allows us to forgo SGD entirely and directly derive the DNN parameters using this class-based PCA, which can be well estimated using significantly less data than SGD. We implement these results on image datasets MNIST, CIFAR10 and CIFAR100 and find that, in fact, layers derived using our class-based PCA perform comparable or superior to neural networks of the same size and architecture trained using SGD. We also confirm that the class-based PCA often converges using a fraction of the data required for SGD. Thus, using our method training time can be reduced both by requiring less training data than SGD, and by eliminating layers in the costly backpropagation step of the training.

Deep Multi-view Models for Glitch Classification

Non-cosmic, non-Gaussian disturbances known as "glitches", show up in gravitational-wave data of the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or aLIGO. In this paper, we propose a deep multi-view convolutional neural network to classify glitches automatically. The primary purpose of classifying glitches is to understand their characteristics and origin, which facilitates their removal from the data or from the detector entirely. We visualize glitches as spectrograms and leverage the state-of-the-art image classification techniques in our model. The suggested classifier is a multi-view deep neural network that exploits four different views for classification. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model improves the overall accuracy of the classification compared to traditional single view algorithms.