Available Technical Reports
University of Maryland Computer Science Technical Reports

Listing of Univ. of Maryland CS technical reports by Dianne P. O'Leary

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Dianne P. O'Leary

Arxiv manuscript
Roozbeh Yousefzadeh and Dianne P. O'Leary, Auditing and Debugging Deep Learning Models via Decision Boundaries: Individual-level and Group-level Analysis, January 2020.

Deep learning models have been criticized for their lack of easy interpretation, which undermines confidence in their use for important applications. Nevertheless, they are consistently utilized in many applications, consequential to humans' lives, mostly because of their better performance. Therefore, there is a great need for computational methods that can explain, audit, and debug such models. Here, we use flip points to accomplish these goals for deep learning models with continuous output scores (e.g., computed by softmax), used in social applications. A flip point is any point that lies on the boundary between two output classes: e.g. for a model with a binary yes/no output, a flip point is any input that generates equal scores for "yes" and "no". The flip point closest to a given input is of particular importance because it reveals the least changes in the input that would change a model's classification, and we show that it is the solution to a well-posed optimization problem. Flip points also enable us to systematically study the decision boundaries of a deep learning classifier. The resulting insight into the decision boundaries of a deep model can clearly explain the model's output on the individual-level, via an explanation report that is understandable by non-experts. We also develop a procedure to understand and audit model behavior towards groups of people. Flip points can also be used to alter the decision boundaries in order to improve undesirable behaviors. We demonstrate our methods by investigating several models trained on standard datasets used in social applications of machine learning. We also identify the features that are most responsible for particular classifications and misclassifications.

Arxiv manuscript
Roozbeh Yousefzadeh and Dianne P. O'Leary, A Probabilistic Framework and a Homotopy Method for Real-Time Hierarchical Freight Dispatch Decisions, December 2019.

We propose a real-time decision framework for multimodal freight dispatch through a system of hierarchical hubs, using a probabilistic model for transit times. Instead of assigning a fixed time to each transit, we advocate using historical records to identify characteristics of the probability density function for each transit time. We formulate a nonlinear optimization problem that defines dispatch decisions that minimize expected cost, using this probabilistic information. Finally, we propose an effective homotopy algorithm that (empirically) outperforms standard optimization algorithms on this problem by taking advantage of its structure, and we demonstrate its effectiveness on numerical examples.

Arxiv manuscript
Roozbeh Yousefzadeh and Dianne P. O'Leary, Investigating Decision Boundaries of Trained Neural Networks, August 2019.

Deep learning models have been the subject of study from various perspectives, for example, their training process, interpretation, generalization error, robustness to adversarial attacks, etc. A trained model is defined by its decision boundaries, and therefore, many of the studies about deep learning models speculate about the decision boundaries, and sometimes make simplifying assumptions about them. So far, finding exact points on the decision boundaries of trained deep models has been considered an intractable problem. Here, we compute exact points on the decision boundaries of these models and provide mathematical tools to investigate the surfaces that define the decision boundaries. Through numerical results, we confirm that some of the speculations about the decision boundaries are accurate, some of the computational methods can be improved, and some of the simplifying assumptions may be unreliable, for models with nonlinear activation functions. We advocate for verification of simplifying assumptions and approximation methods, wherever they are used. Finally, we demonstrate that the computational practices used for finding adversarial examples can be improved and computing the closest point on the decision boundary reveals the weakest vulnerability of a model against adversarial attack.

Arxiv manuscript
Roozbeh Yousefzadeh and Dianne P. O'Leary, Refining the Structure of Neural Networks Using Matrix Conditioing, August 2019.

Deep learning models have proven to be exceptionally useful in performing many machine learning tasks. However, for each new dataset, choosing an effective size and structure of the model can be a time-consuming process of trial and error. While a small network with few neurons might not be able to capture the intricacies of a given task, having too many neurons can lead to overfitting and poor generalization. Here, we propose a practical method that employs matrix conditioning to automatically design the structure of layers of a feed-forward network, by first adjusting the proportion of neurons among the layers of a network and then scaling the size of network up or down. Results on sample image and non-image datasets demonstrate that our method results in small networks with high accuracies. Finally, guided by matrix conditioning, we provide a method to effectively squeeze models that are already trained. Our techniques reduce the human cost of designing deep learning models and can also reduce training time and the expense of using neural networks for applications.

Arxiv manuscript
Interpreting Neural Networks Using Flip Points, Roozbeh Yousefadeh and Dianne P. O'Leary, March 2019.

Neural networks have been criticized for their lack of easy interpretation, which undermines confidence in their use for important applications. Here, we introduce a novel technique, interpreting a trained neural network by investigating its flip points. A flip point is any point that lies on the boundary between two output classes: e.g. for aneural network with a binary yes/no output, a flip point is any input that generates equal scores for "yes" and "no". The flip point closest to a given input is of particular importance, and this point is the solution to a well-posed optimization problem. This paper gives an overview of the uses of flip points and how they are computed. Through results on standard datasets, we demonstrate how flip points can be used to provide detailed interpretation of the output produced by a neural network. Moreover, for a given input, flip points enable us to measure confidence in the correctness of outputs much more effectively than softmax score.They also identify influential features of the inputs, identify bias, and find changes in the input that change the output of the model. We show that distance between an input and the closest flip point identifies the most influential points in the training data. Using principal component analysis (PCA) and rank-revealing QR factorization(RR-QR), the set of directions from each training input to its closest flip point provides explanations of how a trained neural network processes an entire dataset: what features are most important for classification into a given class, which features are most responsible for particular misclassifications, how an adversary might fool thenetwork, etc. Although we investigate flip points for neural networks, their usefulness is actually model-agnostic.

Unpublished manuscript and varpro.m software
Variable Projection for Nonlinear Least Squares Problems, Dianne P. O'Leary and Bert W. Rust, 2011.

The variable projection algorithm of Golub and Pereyra (1973) has proven to be quite valuable in the solution of nonlinear least squares problems in which a substantial number of the parameters are linear. Its advantages are efficiency and, more importantly, a better likelihood of finding a global minimizer rather than a local one. The purpose of our work is to provide a more robust implementation of this algorithm, include constraints on the parameters, more clearly identify key ingredients so that improvements can be made, compute the Jacobian matrix more accurately, and make future implementations in other languages easy.

CS-TR-4807
Modified Cholesky Algorithms: A Catalog with New Approaches, Haw-ren Fang and Dianne P. O'Leary, August 2006.

Given an $n \times n$ symmetric possibly indefinite matrix $A$, a modified Cholesky algorithm computes a factorization of the positive definite matrix $A+E$, where $E$ is a correction matrix. Since the factorization is often used to compute a Newton-like downhill search direction for an optimization problem, the goals are to compute the modification without much additional cost and to keep $A+E$ well-conditioned and close to $A$. Gill, Murray and Wright introduced a stable algorithm, with a bound of $\|E\|_2=O(n^2)$. An algorithm of Schnabel and Eskow further guarantees $\|E\|_2=O(n)$. We present variants that also ensure $\|E\|_2=O(n)$. Mor\'{e} and Sorensen and Cheng and Higham used the block $LBL^T$ factorization with blocks of order $1$ or $2$. Algorithms in this class have a worst-case cost $O(n^3)$ higher than the standard Cholesky factorization, We present a new approach using an $LTL^T$ factorization, with $T$ tridiagonal, that guarantees a modification cost of at most $O(n^2)$.

SANDIA Report
QCS: A System for Querying, Clustering, and Summarizing Documents, Daniel M. Dunlavy, Dianne P. O'Leary, John M. Conroy, and Judith D. Schlesinger, July 2006.

Information retrieval systems consist of many complicated components. Research and development of such systems is often hampered by the difficulty in evaluating how each particular component would behave across multiple systems. We present a novel hybrid information retrieval system---the Query, Cluster, Summarize (QCS) system---which is portable, modular, and permits experimentation with different instantiations of each of the constituent text analysis components. Most importantly, the combination of the three types of components methods in the QCS design improves retrievals by providing users more focused information organized by topic. We demonstrate the improved performance by a series of experiments using standard test sets from the Document Understanding Conferences (DUC) along with the best known automatic metric for summarization system evaluation, {\tt ROUGE}. Although the DUC data and evaluations were originally designed to test multidocument summarization, we developed a framework to extend it to the task of evaluation for each of the three components: query, clustering, and summarization. Under this framework, we then demonstrate that the QCS system (end-to-end) achieves performance as good as or better than the best summarization engines. Given a query, QCS retrieves relevant documents, separates the retrieved documents into topic clusters, and creates a single summary for each cluster. In the current implementation, Latent Semantic Indexing is used for retrieval, generalized spherical k-means is used for the document clustering, and a method coupling sentence ``trimming,'' and a hidden Markov model, followed by a pivoted QR decomposition, is used to create a single extract summary for each cluster. The user interface is designed to provide access to detailed information in a compact and useful format. Our system demonstrates the feasibility of assembling an effective IR system from existing software libraries, the usefulness of the modularity of the design, and the value of this particular combination of modules.

quant-ph/0603081

Parallelism for Quantum Computation with Qudits Dianne P. O'Leary, Gavin K. Brennen, and Stephen S. Bullock,
Robust quantum computation with $d$-level quantum systems (qudits) poses two requirements: fast, parallel quantum gates and high fidelity two-qudit gates. We first describe how to implement parallel single qudit operations. It is by now well known that any single-qudit unitary can be decomposed into a sequence of Givens rotations on two-dimensional subspaces of the qudit state space. Using a coupling graph to represent physically allowed couplings between pairs of qudit states, we then show that the logical depth {(time)} of the parallel gate sequence is equal to the height of an associated tree. The implementation of a given unitary can then optimize the tradeoff between gate time and resources used. These ideas are illustrated for qudits encoded in the ground hyperfine states of the atomic alkalies $^{87}$Rb and $^{133}$Cs. Second, we provide a protocol for implementing parallelized non-local two-qudit gates using the assistance of entangled qubit pairs. {Using known protocols for qubit entanglement purification}, this offers the possibility of high fidelity two-qudit gates.

CS-TR-4773

Homotopy Optimization Methods for Global Optimization, Daniel M. Dunlavy and Dianne P. O'Leary, December 2005.
We define a new method for global optimization, the Homotopy Optimization Method (HOM). This method differs from previous homotopy and continuation methods in that its aim is to find a minimizer for each of a set of values of the homotopy parameter, rather than to follow a path of minimizers. We define a second method, called HOPE, by allowing HOM to follow an ensemble of points obtained by perturbation of previous ones. We relate this new method to standard methods such as simulated annealing and show under what circumstances it is superior. We present results of extensive numerical experiments demonstrating performance of HOM and HOPE.

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0509161

Efficient Circuits for Exact-Universal Computation with Qudits, Gavin K. Brennen, Stephen S. Bullock, and Dianne P. O'Leary, September 2005.
This paper concerns the efficient implementation of quantum circuits for qudits. We show that controlled two-qudit gates can be implemented without ancillas and prove that the gate library containing arbitrary local unitaries and one two-qudit gate, CINC, is exact-universal. A recent paper [S.Bullock, D.O'Leary, and G.K. Brennen, Phys. Rev. Let t. 94, 230502 (2005)] describes quantum circuits for qudits which require $O(d^n)$ two-qudit gates for state synthesis and $O(d^{2n})$ two-qudit gates for unitary synthesis, matching the respective lower bound complexities. In this work, we present the state synthesis circuit in much greater detail and prove that it is correct. Also, the $\lceil (n-2)/(d-2) \rceil$ ancillas required in the original algorithm may be removed without changing the asymptotics. Further, we present a new algorithm for unitary synthesis, inspired by the QR matrix decomposition, which is also asymptotically optimal.

CS-TR-4733
Stable Factorizations of Symmetric Tridiagonal and Triadic Matrices Haw-ren Fang and Dianne P. O'Leary, July, 2005

We call a matrix triadic if it has no more than two nonzero off-diagonal elements in any column. A symmetric tridiagonal matrix is a special case. In this paper we consider $LXL^T$ factorizations of symmetric triadic matrices, where $L$ is unit lower triangular and $X$ is diagonal, block diagonal with 1x1 and 2x2 blocks, or the identity with $L$ lower triangular. We prove that with diagonal pivoting, the $LXL^T$ factorization of a symmetric triadic matrix is sparse, study some pivoting algorithms, discuss their growth factor and performance, analyze their stability, and develop perturbation bounds. These factorizations are useful in computing inertia, in solving linear systems of equations, and in determining modified Newton search directions.

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0410116

CS-TR-4622

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0407223

CS-TR-4594 June 2004. updated version (April 2005)

CS-TR-4592 (updated)

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0402051

ftp://ftp.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/pub/SISTA/lemmerli/reports/whole5f.zip

CS-TR-4423

CS-TR-4390

CS-TR-4296

CS-TR-4287

CS-TR-4283

CS-TR-4221

CS-TR-4162

CS-TR-4161

Animated companion to the above two papers, Nagy and O'Leary, July 2000

CS-TR-4029

CS-TR-4023

CS-TR-4012

Supplement to CS-TR-4012 April 1999, Kolda and O'Leary, SDDPACK software

CS-TR-4011

CS-TR-4004

CS-TR-3937

CS-TR-3890

CS-TR-3839

CS-TR-3829

CS-TR-3827

CS-TR-3810

CS-TR-3724

CS-TR-3713

CS-TR-3684

CS-TR-3682

CS-TR-3663

CS-TR-3622

CS-TR-3560

CS-TR-3556

CS-TR-3426

CS-TR-3112

CS-TR-3045