arXiv AI

Zero-Inflated Gaussian Distributions Enable Parameter-Space Sparsity in Estimation-of-Distribution Algorithms

arXiv:2606. 19369v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Estimation-of-distribution algorithms (EDAs) are a powerful class of evolutionary methods for black-box optimization, especially when little is known about the structure of the objective.

arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 14

Nonlinear Dimensionality Reduction Techniques for Bayesian Optimization

The paper investigates nonlinear dimensionality reduction for Bayesian optimisation (BO) by transforming high‑dimensional black‑box optimisation problems into a sequence of low‑dimensional latent‑space BO (LSBO) tasks. It extends earlier linear embedding approaches by using variational autoencoders (VAEs), deep metric loss, and adaptive retraining to better capture nonlinear structure, and couples LSBO with sequential domain reduction (SDR‑LSBO) to progressively narrow search domains. Experiments on GPU‑accelerated BoTorch with Matérn‑5/2 Gaussian‑process surrogates show that VAE‑based LSBO outperforms adaptive linear embeddings, and the authors provide a theoretical analysis of latent‑space error versus representation gap under PAC‑Bayes conditions.

By Luo Long, Coralia Cartis, Paz Fink Shustin
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 23

On Basis Function Selection for Sparse Gaussian Process Regression

The paper proposes three information‑theoretic criteria for selecting the most relevant basis functions in sparse Gaussian process regression, tailored to different levels of prior knowledge. Experiments on six UCI regression datasets and three basis families (HSGP, VFF, VISH) show that the no‑data criterion is a robust default, often outperforming simple truncation, while the data‑aware criteria yield significant improvements for HSGP. The study demonstrates that careful basis‑function selection can lead to better performance without increasing computational cost.

By Marnix Van Soom, Ivan De Boi
arXiv AI
Aug 19

Maximum Tsallis Entropy Distributions for Robust and Efficient Sparse Learning from Correlated Data

The paper proposes using the $q$Gaussian distribution, derived from Tsallis entropy maximization, to address the shortcomings of Gaussian assumptions in sparse learning with correlated and heterogeneous data. It introduces a new framework that adapts numerical equilibrium methods to composite optimization problems, applying it to the Hager‑Zhang conjugate gradient algorithm to create a stable, efficient sparse learning algorithm. The work offers both theoretical insights into alternative statistical distributions and practical tools for data analysis in fields like biostatistics.

By Kai Yang, Masoud Asgharian, Celia M. T. Greenwood
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 4

No-Regret Bayesian Optimization with Finite-Library Input-Warped Kernels

The paper introduces Finite-Library Input-Warped Bayesian Optimization (FLIWBO), a method that selects input warps from a finite library to adapt the geometry used by Gaussian‑process Bayesian optimization. FLIWBO maintains high‑probability convergence guarantees while improving sample efficiency on problems where raw coordinates poorly match the objective’s geometry, such as log‑scaled hyperparameters or localized peaks. Experiments on synthetic benchmarks, Fashion‑MNIST hyperparameter tuning, and a 20‑dimensional multi‑agent system design demonstrate that FLIWBO‑UCB outperforms raw‑coordinate GP‑UCB and other methods with regret guarantees, especially under misspecified geometry.

By Edvin Ketabati Augustinsson, Robert A. Bridges