Algorithm Configuration for Structured Pfaffian Settings

TMLR Paper3653 Authors

Abstract:

Data-driven algorithm design uses historical problem instances to automatically adjust and optimize algorithms to their application domain, typically by selecting algorithms from parameterized families. While the approach has been highly successful in practice, providing theoretical guarantees for several algorithmic families remains challenging. This is due to the intricate dependence of the algorithmic performance on the parameters, often exhibiting a piecewise discontinuous structure. In this work, we present refined frameworks for providing learning guarantees for parameterized data-driven algorithm design problems in both distributional and online learning settings.

For the distributional learning setting, we introduce the Pfaffian GJ framework, an extension of the classical Goldberg-Jerrum (GJ) framework, that is capable of providing learning guarantees for function classes for which the computation involves Pfaffian functions. Unlike the GJ framework, which is limited to function classes with computation characterized by rational functions, our proposed framework can deal with function classes involving Pfaffian functions, which are much more general and widely applicable. We then show that for many parameterized algorithms of interest, their utility function possesses a refined piecewise structure, which automatically translates to learning guarantees using our proposed framework.

For the online learning setting, we provide a new tool for verifying the dispersion property of a sequence of loss functions, a sufficient condition that allows no-regret learning for sequences of piecewise structured loss functions where the piecewise structure involves Pfaffian transition boundaries. We use our framework to provide novel learning guarantees for many challenging data-driven design problems of interest, including data-driven linkage-based clustering, graph-based semi-supervised learning, and regularized logistic regression.

Submission Length: Long submission (more than 12 pages of main content)

Assigned Action Editor: ~Gergely_Neu1

Submission Number: 3653