arXiv Machine Learning

Linearized Wasserstein dimensionality reduction with approximation guarantees

The paper introduces LOT Wassmap, an algorithm designed to uncover low‑dimensional structures in the Wasserstein space without computing a full pairwise distance matrix. It leverages approximation schemes such as Sinkhorn distances and linearized optimal transport to accelerate computations, and provides theoretical guarantees on embedding quality even when only finite samples are available. Experiments show that LOT Wassmap achieves accurate embeddings that improve with larger sample sizes while significantly reducing computational cost compared to traditional pairwise‑distance‑based methods.

arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 18

The Observable Wasserstein Distance

arXiv:2605. 09916v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We introduce the observable Wasserstein distance, a framework for deriving lower bounds on the Wasserstein distance between probability measures on Polish metric spaces, designed to bypass the computational intractability of exact optimal transport in large-scale, non-Euclidean datasets.

By Edivaldo Lopes dos Santos, Leandro Vicente Mauri, Washington Mio, Tom Needham
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 31

Optimal Transport for Network Comparison: A Review with Machine Learning Applications

The paper reviews the use of optimal transport for comparing undirected, unweighted graphs, focusing on three main distances: Wasserstein, Gromov-Wasserstein, and Bures-Wasserstein. It discusses closed-form solutions for the Wasserstein distance in one dimension, how transport plans identify influential nodes after perturbations, and derives spectral bounds for the Bures-Wasserstein distance to avoid full decompositions. The authors evaluate these distances on synthetic clustering data and a real-world time‑series network for anomaly detection.

By James Hyun, Fran\c{c}ois G. Meyer
arXiv Computer Vision
Oct 5

Unlocking Geodesic Gromov-Wasserstein Distances for 3D Modeling

The paper introduces EGGroW, efficient algorithms for computing geodesic Gromov-Wasserstein distances using entropic Sinkhorn-like methods, GenusSink techniques, and random features. It addresses the cubic time complexity of traditional GWD calculations on dense intra-space distance matrices, enabling scalable comparisons of probabilistic distributions on general geodesic manifolds and graph shortest‑path distances. The authors demonstrate EGGroW’s effectiveness in downstream tasks such as 3D pose estimation and partial 3D template recovery, showing accurate results where Euclidean‑based methods fail while maintaining a light computational footprint.

By Krzysztof Marcin Choromanski, Derek Long, Ananya Parashar, Dwaipayan Saha
arXiv Statistics ML
Sep 4

Discrete Gromov-Wasserstein Duality: Algorithms and Isomorphism Testing

The paper presents a new duality formulation for the Gromov‑Wasserstein distance that applies to all finitely supported metric‑measure spaces, with and without entropic regularization. Using this duality, the authors derive sample‑complexity bounds and limit distributions for empirical GW distances, and introduce algorithms with formal convergence guarantees. These results enable a principled, efficient method for testing isomorphism between distributions on graphs with a fixed number of nodes based on samples.

By Gabriel Rioux, Joanna Marks, Riccardo Passeggeri, Ziv Goldfeld