arXiv Machine Learning

Direct Fisher Score Estimation for Likelihood Maximization

arXiv:2506. 06542v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We study the problem of likelihood maximization when the likelihood function is intractable but model simulations are readily available.

arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 11

Generalized Score Matching for Parameter Estimation on Convex Domains

The paper introduces a generalized score matching objective for parameter estimation on convex subsets of ρ^d, derived from Minimum Probability Flow learning. It shows that this objective is a proper local scoring rule of second order, ensuring recovery of the true density when minimized, and proves convexity and consistency for exponential family models under standard conditions. Experiments demonstrate the method’s effectiveness on constrained domains where the partition function is intractable, including a generative modeling use‑case.

By Nishanth Shetty, Saisuchith Mahajan, Chandra Sekhar Seelamantula
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 18

FedFIbOS: Fisher Importance based Optimal Submodelling for Heterogeneous Federated Learning

FedFIbOS introduces a Fisher‑importance based criterion for selecting submodel parameters in heterogeneous federated learning, addressing the lack of theoretical justification in prior heuristic methods. By deriving a Fisher‑weighted quadratic masking surrogate and showing that the raw Fisher top‑k rule satisfies this surrogate under a Fisher‑dominant ranking condition, the method preserves convergence guarantees while efficiently estimating Fisher scores from squared gradients. Experiments on CIFAR‑10, CIFAR‑100, and AGNews demonstrate that FedFIbOS outperforms state‑of‑the‑art approaches by roughly 10% in accuracy, especially under strong non‑IID heterogeneity.

By Yasmeen Afzal, Jeremiah D. Deng, Haibo Zhang
arXiv AI
6d ago

Bayesian Optimization with Fisher Information Geometry: Gradient Bounds and Trust-Region Methods

The paper investigates Bayesian optimization using information geometry, deriving a local sensitivity tensor from the Fisher information metric that bounds the gradient of reparameterizable acquisition functions. This framework explains vanishing-gradient issues in high-dimensional settings and unifies heuristics like RAASP and dimension-scaled lengthscales. Leveraging this insight, the authors introduce FITR, a trust‑region BO method that replaces lengthscale scaling with local pullback‑Fisher weights, achieving competitive performance on GP benchmarks and extending naturally to non‑isotropic surrogates.

By Saksham Kiroriwal, Julius Pfrommer, J\"urgen Beyerer
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 24

The Degeneracy Distillery

arXiv:2606. 23838v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: When two or more parameters or labels produce similar data, they are degenerate, or hard to distinguish.

By T. Lucas Makinen, Deaglan J. Bartlett, Niall Jeffrey, Benjamin D. Wandelt
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 7

A Gradient Flow Perspective on Minimum MMD Estimation

arXiv:2607. 03871v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Minimum maximum mean discrepancy (MMD) estimation has emerged as a robust and likelihood-free alternative to maximum likelihood estimation for parameter estimation.

By Sophia Seulkee Kang, Louis Sharrock, Xiaoyuan Cheng, Fran\c{c}ois-Xavier Briol, Zonghao Chen
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 14

A Generalized Tangent Approximation based Variational Inference Framework for Strongly Super-Gaussian Likelihoods

The paper introduces a new variational inference framework that uses tangent transformations to handle strongly super‑Gaussian likelihoods across a wide range of probability models. By constructing tangent minorants of the log‑likelihood through convex duality, the method achieves conjugacy with Gaussian priors, enabling tractable inference where traditional approaches struggle. The authors provide algorithmic convergence guarantees and near‑parametric risk bounds, and demonstrate superior scalability and accuracy on both simulated and real‑world datasets compared to existing variational algorithms.

By Somjit Roy, Pritam Dey, Debdeep Pati, Bani K. Mallick
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 14

Likelihood Matching for Diffusion Models

arXiv:2508. 03636v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We propose a Likelihood Matching approach for training diffusion models by first establishing an equivalence between the likelihood of the target data distribution and a likelihood along the sample path of the reverse diffusion.

By Lei Qian, Wu Su, Yanqi Huang, Song Xi Chen
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 27

Gradient-based Sample Selection for Faster Bayesian Optimization

The paper introduces Gradient-based Sample Selection Bayesian Optimization (GSSBO), a method that builds the Gaussian process surrogate on a strategically chosen subset of samples rather than the full dataset. By using gradient information to eliminate redundant points while keeping diversity and representativeness, GSSBO achieves sublinear regret bounds and reduces the cubic computational cost of standard BO. Experiments on synthetic and real-world tasks show that this approach maintains comparable optimization performance while significantly cutting GP fitting time and resource usage.

By Qiyu Wei, Haowei Wang, Zirui Cao, Songhao Wang, Richard Allmendinger, Mauricio A \'Alvarez