arXiv subjects

Bogdan Gabrys

Publications and source records attributed to Bogdan Gabrys.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

The Technological Emergence of AutoML: A Survey of Performant Software and Applications in the Context of Industry

With most technical fields, there exists a delay between fundamental academic research and practical industrial uptake. Whilst some sciences have robust and well-established processes for commercialisation, such as the pharmaceutical practice of regimented drug trials, other fields face transitory periods in which fundamental academic advancements diffuse gradually into the space of commerce and industry. For the still relatively young field of Automated/Autonomous Machine Learning (AutoML/AutonoML), that transitory period is under way, spurred on by a burgeoning interest from broader society. Yet, to date, little research has been undertaken to assess the current state of this dissemination and its uptake. Thus, this review makes two primary contributions to knowledge around this topic. Firstly, it provides the most up-to-date and comprehensive survey of existing AutoML tools, both open-source and commercial. Secondly, it motivates and outlines a framework for assessing whether an AutoML solution designed for real-world application is 'performant'; this framework extends beyond the limitations of typical academic criteria, considering a variety of stakeholder needs and the human-computer interactions required to service them. Thus, additionally supported by an extensive assessment and comparison of academic and commercial case-studies, this review evaluates mainstream engagement with AutoML in the early 2020s, identifying obstacles and opportunities for accelerating future uptake.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2022

hyperbox-brain: A Toolbox for Hyperbox-based Machine Learning Algorithms

Hyperbox-based machine learning algorithms are an important and popular branch of machine learning in the construction of classifiers using fuzzy sets and logic theory and neural network architectures. This type of learning is characterised by many strong points of modern predictors such as a high scalability, explainability, online adaptation, effective learning from a small amount of data, native ability to deal with missing data and accommodating new classes. Nevertheless, there is no comprehensive existing package for hyperbox-based machine learning which can serve as a benchmark for research and allow non-expert users to apply these algorithms easily. hyperbox-brain is an open-source Python library implementing the leading hyperbox-based machine learning algorithms. This library exposes a unified API which closely follows and is compatible with the renowned scikit-learn and numpy toolboxes. The library may be installed from Python Package Index (PyPI) and the conda package manager and is distributed under the GPL-3 license. The source code, documentation, detailed tutorials, and the full descriptions of the API are available at https://uts-caslab.github.io/hyperbox-brain.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2022

On Taking Advantage of Opportunistic Meta-knowledge to Reduce Configuration Spaces for Automated Machine Learning

The automated machine learning (AutoML) process can require searching through complex configuration spaces of not only machine learning (ML) components and their hyperparameters but also ways of composing them together, i.e. forming ML pipelines. Optimisation efficiency and the model accuracy attainable for a fixed time budget suffer if this pipeline configuration space is excessively large. A key research question is whether it is both possible and practical to preemptively avoid costly evaluations of poorly performing ML pipelines by leveraging their historical performance for various ML tasks, i.e. meta-knowledge. The previous experience comes in the form of classifier/regressor accuracy rankings derived from either (1) a substantial but non-exhaustive number of pipeline evaluations made during historical AutoML runs, i.e. 'opportunistic' meta-knowledge, or (2) comprehensive cross-validated evaluations of classifiers/regressors with default hyperparameters, i.e. 'systematic' meta-knowledge. Numerous experiments with the AutoWeka4MCPS package suggest that (1) opportunistic/systematic meta-knowledge can improve ML outcomes, typically in line with how relevant that meta-knowledge is, and (2) configuration-space culling is optimal when it is neither too conservative nor too radical. However, the utility and impact of meta-knowledge depend critically on numerous facets of its generation and exploitation, warranting extensive analysis; these are often overlooked/underappreciated within AutoML and meta-learning literature. In particular, we observe strong sensitivity to the `challenge' of a dataset, i.e. whether specificity in choosing a predictor leads to significantly better performance. Ultimately, identifying `difficult' datasets, thus defined, is crucial to both generating informative meta-knowledge bases and understanding optimal search-space reduction strategies.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2022

Automated Deep Learning: Neural Architecture Search Is Not the End

Deep learning (DL) has proven to be a highly effective approach for developing models in diverse contexts, including visual perception, speech recognition, and machine translation. However, the end-to-end process for applying DL is not trivial. It requires grappling with problem formulation and context understanding, data engineering, model development, deployment, continuous monitoring and maintenance, and so on. Moreover, each of these steps typically relies heavily on humans, in terms of both knowledge and interactions, which impedes the further advancement and democratization of DL. Consequently, in response to these issues, a new field has emerged over the last few years: automated deep learning (AutoDL). This endeavor seeks to minimize the need for human involvement and is best known for its achievements in neural architecture search (NAS), a topic that has been the focus of several surveys. That stated, NAS is not the be-all and end-all of AutoDL. Accordingly, this review adopts an overarching perspective, examining research efforts into automation across the entirety of an archetypal DL workflow. In so doing, this work also proposes a comprehensive set of ten criteria by which to assess existing work in both individual publications and broader research areas. These criteria are: novelty, solution quality, efficiency, stability, interpretability, reproducibility, engineering quality, scalability, generalizability, and eco-friendliness. Thus, ultimately, this review provides an evaluative overview of AutoDL in the early 2020s, identifying where future opportunities for progress may exist.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2022

The Roles and Modes of Human Interactions with Automated Machine Learning Systems

As automated machine learning (AutoML) systems continue to progress in both sophistication and performance, it becomes important to understand the `how' and `why' of human-computer interaction (HCI) within these frameworks, both current and expected. Such a discussion is necessary for optimal system design, leveraging advanced data-processing capabilities to support decision-making involving humans, but it is also key to identifying the opportunities and risks presented by ever-increasing levels of machine autonomy. Within this context, we focus on the following questions: (i) How does HCI currently look like for state-of-the-art AutoML algorithms, especially during the stages of development, deployment, and maintenance? (ii) Do the expectations of HCI within AutoML frameworks vary for different types of users and stakeholders? (iii) How can HCI be managed so that AutoML solutions acquire human trust and broad acceptance? (iv) As AutoML systems become more autonomous and capable of learning from complex open-ended environments, will the fundamental nature of HCI evolve? To consider these questions, we project existing literature in HCI into the space of AutoML; this connection has, to date, largely been unexplored. In so doing, we review topics including user-interface design, human-bias mitigation, and trust in artificial intelligence (AI). Additionally, to rigorously gauge the future of HCI, we contemplate how AutoML may manifest in effectively open-ended environments. This discussion necessarily reviews projected developmental pathways for AutoML, such as the incorporation of reasoning, although the focus remains on how and why HCI may occur in such a framework rather than on any implementational details. Ultimately, this review serves to identify key research directions aimed at better facilitating the roles and modes of human interactions with both current and future AutoML systems.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2022

Random Hyperboxes

This paper proposes a simple yet powerful ensemble classifier, called Random Hyperboxes, constructed from individual hyperbox-based classifiers trained on the random subsets of sample and feature spaces of the training set. We also show a generalization error bound of the proposed classifier based on the strength of the individual hyperbox-based classifiers as well as the correlation among them. The effectiveness of the proposed classifier is analyzed using a carefully selected illustrative example and compared empirically with other popular single and ensemble classifiers via 20 datasets using statistical testing methods. The experimental results confirmed that our proposed method outperformed other fuzzy min-max neural networks, popular learning algorithms, and is competitive with other ensemble methods. Finally, we identify the existing issues related to the generalization error bounds of the real datasets and inform the potential research directions.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2022

Application of Machine Learning to Performance Assessment for a class of PID-based Control Systems

In this paper, a novel machine learning derived control performance assessment (CPA) classification system is proposed. It is dedicated for a wide class of PID-based control industrial loops with processes exhibiting dynamical properties close to second order plus delay time (SOPDT). The proposed concept is very general and easy to configure to distinguish between acceptable and poor closed loop performance. This approach allows for determining the best (but also robust and practically achievable) closed loop performance based on very popular and intuitive closed loop quality factors. Training set can be automatically derived off-line using a number of different, diverse control performance indices (CPIs) used as discriminative features of the assessed control system. The proposed extended set of CPIs is discussed with comprehensive performance assessment of different machine learning based classification methods and practical application of the suggested solution. As a result, a general-purpose CPA system is derived that can be immediately applied in practice without any preliminary or additional learning stage during normal closed loop operation. It is verified by practical application to assess the control system for a laboratory heat exchange and distribution setup.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2022

AutonoML: Towards an Integrated Framework for Autonomous Machine Learning

Over the last decade, the long-running endeavour to automate high-level processes in machine learning (ML) has risen to mainstream prominence, stimulated by advances in optimisation techniques and their impact on selecting ML models/algorithms. Central to this drive is the appeal of engineering a computational system that both discovers and deploys high-performance solutions to arbitrary ML problems with minimal human interaction. Beyond this, an even loftier goal is the pursuit of autonomy, which describes the capability of the system to independently adjust an ML solution over a lifetime of changing contexts. However, these ambitions are unlikely to be achieved in a robust manner without the broader synthesis of various mechanisms and theoretical frameworks, which, at the present time, remain scattered across numerous research threads. Accordingly, this review seeks to motivate a more expansive perspective on what constitutes an automated/autonomous ML system, alongside consideration of how best to consolidate those elements. In doing so, we survey developments in the following research areas: hyperparameter optimisation, multi-component models, neural architecture search, automated feature engineering, meta-learning, multi-level ensembling, dynamic adaptation, multi-objective evaluation, resource constraints, flexible user involvement, and the principles of generalisation. We also develop a conceptual framework throughout the review, augmented by each topic, to illustrate one possible way of fusing high-level mechanisms into an autonomous ML system. Ultimately, we conclude that the notion of architectural integration deserves more discussion, without which the field of automated ML risks stifling both its technical advantages and general uptake.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2022

Towards Digital Twin Oriented Modelling of Complex Networked Systems and Their Dynamics: A Comprehensive Survey

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive critical overview on how entities and their interactions in Complex Networked Systems (CNS) are modelled across disciplines as they approach their ultimate goal of creating a Digital Twin (DT) that perfectly matches the reality. We propose a new framework to conceptually compare diverse existing modelling paradigms from different perspectives and create unified assessment criteria to assess their respective capabilities of reaching such an ultimate goal. Using the proposed criteria, we also appraise how far the reviewed current state-of-the-art approaches are from the idealised DTs. We also identify and propose potential directions and ways of building a DT-orientated CNS based on the convergence and integration of CNS and DT utilising a variety of cross-disciplinary techniques.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2021

Foundations and modelling of dynamic networks using Dynamic Graph Neural Networks: A survey

Dynamic networks are used in a wide range of fields, including social network analysis, recommender systems, and epidemiology. Representing complex networks as structures changing over time allow network models to leverage not only structural but also temporal patterns. However, as dynamic network literature stems from diverse fields and makes use of inconsistent terminology, it is challenging to navigate. Meanwhile, graph neural networks (GNNs) have gained a lot of attention in recent years for their ability to perform well on a range of network science tasks, such as link prediction and node classification. Despite the popularity of graph neural networks and the proven benefits of dynamic network models, there has been little focus on graph neural networks for dynamic networks. To address the challenges resulting from the fact that this research crosses diverse fields as well as to survey dynamic graph neural networks, this work is split into two main parts. First, to address the ambiguity of the dynamic network terminology we establish a foundation of dynamic networks with consistent, detailed terminology and notation. Second, we present a comprehensive survey of dynamic graph neural network models using the proposed terminology

cs.SI↗

arXiv2021

Automated Adaptation Strategies for Stream Learning

Automation of machine learning model development is increasingly becoming an established research area. While automated model selection and automated data pre-processing have been studied in depth, there is, however, a gap concerning automated model adaptation strategies when multiple strategies are available. Manually developing an adaptation strategy can be time consuming and costly. In this paper we address this issue by proposing the use of flexible adaptive mechanism deployment for automated development of adaptation strategies. Experimental results after using the proposed strategies with five adaptive algorithms on 36 datasets confirm their viability. These strategies achieve better or comparable performance to the custom adaptation strategies and the repeated deployment of any single adaptive mechanism.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2021

Exploring Opportunistic Meta-knowledge to Reduce Search Spaces for Automated Machine Learning

Machine learning (ML) pipeline composition and optimisation have been studied to seek multi-stage ML models, i.e. preprocessor-inclusive, that are both valid and well-performing. These processes typically require the design and traversal of complex configuration spaces consisting of not just individual ML components and their hyperparameters, but also higher-level pipeline structures that link these components together. Optimisation efficiency and resulting ML-model accuracy both suffer if this pipeline search space is unwieldy and excessively large; it becomes an appealing notion to avoid costly evaluations of poorly performing ML components ahead of time. Accordingly, this paper investigates whether, based on previous experience, a pool of available classifiers/regressors can be preemptively culled ahead of initiating a pipeline composition/optimisation process for a new ML problem, i.e. dataset. The previous experience comes in the form of classifier/regressor accuracy rankings derived, with loose assumptions, from a substantial but non-exhaustive number of pipeline evaluations; this meta-knowledge is considered 'opportunistic'. Numerous experiments with the AutoWeka4MCPS package, including ones leveraging similarities between datasets via the relative landmarking method, show that, despite its seeming unreliability, opportunistic meta-knowledge can improve ML outcomes. However, results also indicate that the culling of classifiers/regressors should not be too severe either. In effect, it is better to search through a 'top tier' of recommended predictors than to pin hopes onto one previously supreme performer.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2021

AutoHAS: Efficient Hyperparameter and Architecture Search

Efficient hyperparameter or architecture search methods have shown remarkable results, but each of them is only applicable to searching for either hyperparameters (HPs) or architectures. In this work, we propose a unified pipeline, AutoHAS, to efficiently search for both architectures and hyperparameters. AutoHAS learns to alternately update the shared network weights and a reinforcement learning (RL) controller, which learns the probability distribution for the architecture candidates and HP candidates. A temporary weight is introduced to store the updated weight from the selected HPs (by the controller), and a validation accuracy based on this temporary weight serves as a reward to update the controller. In experiments, we show AutoHAS is efficient and generalizable to different search spaces, baselines and datasets. In particular, AutoHAS can improve the accuracy over popular network architectures, such as ResNet and EfficientNet, on CIFAR-10/100, ImageNet, and four more other datasets.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2021

NATS-Bench: Benchmarking NAS Algorithms for Architecture Topology and Size

Neural architecture search (NAS) has attracted a lot of attention and has been illustrated to bring tangible benefits in a large number of applications in the past few years. Architecture topology and architecture size have been regarded as two of the most important aspects for the performance of deep learning models and the community has spawned lots of searching algorithms for both aspects of the neural architectures. However, the performance gain from these searching algorithms is achieved under different search spaces and training setups. This makes the overall performance of the algorithms to some extent incomparable and the improvement from a sub-module of the searching model unclear. In this paper, we propose NATS-Bench, a unified benchmark on searching for both topology and size, for (almost) any up-to-date NAS algorithm. NATS-Bench includes the search space of 15,625 neural cell candidates for architecture topology and 32,768 for architecture size on three datasets. We analyze the validity of our benchmark in terms of various criteria and performance comparison of all candidates in the search space. We also show the versatility of NATS-Bench by benchmarking 13 recent state-of-the-art NAS algorithms on it. All logs and diagnostic information trained using the same setup for each candidate are provided. This facilitates a much larger community of researchers to focus on developing better NAS algorithms in a more comparable and computationally cost friendly environment. All codes are publicly available at: https://xuanyidong.com/assets/projects/NATS-Bench.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2020

Measuring Quadrangle Formation in Complex Networks

The classic clustering coefficient and the lately proposed closure coefficient quantify the formation of triangles from two different perspectives, with the focal node at the centre or at the end in an open triad respectively. As many networks are naturally rich in triangles, they become standard metrics to describe and analyse networks. However, the advantages of applying them can be limited in networks, where there are relatively few triangles but which are rich in quadrangles, such as the protein-protein interaction networks, the neural networks and the food webs. This yields for other approaches that would leverage quadrangles in our journey to better understand local structures and their meaning in different types of networks. Here we propose two quadrangle coefficients, i.e., the i-quad coefficient and the o-quad coefficient, to quantify quadrangle formation in networks, and we further extend them to weighted networks. Through experiments on 16 networks from six different domains, we first reveal the density distribution of the two quadrangle coefficients, and then analyse their correlations with node degree. Finally, we demonstrate that at network-level, adding the average i-quad coefficient and the average o-quad coefficient leads to significant improvement in network classification, while at node-level, the i-quad and o-quad coefficients are useful features to improve link prediction.

cs.SI↗

arXiv2020

AutoWeka4MCPS-AVATAR: Accelerating Automated Machine Learning Pipeline Composition and Optimisation

Automated machine learning pipeline (ML) composition and optimisation aim at automating the process of finding the most promising ML pipelines within allocated resources (i.e., time, CPU and memory). Existing methods, such as Bayesian-based and genetic-based optimisation, which are implemented in Auto-Weka, Auto-sklearn and TPOT, evaluate pipelines by executing them. Therefore, the pipeline composition and optimisation of these methods frequently require a tremendous amount of time that prevents them from exploring complex pipelines to find better predictive models. To further explore this research challenge, we have conducted experiments showing that many of the generated pipelines are invalid in the first place, and attempting to execute them is a waste of time and resources. To address this issue, we propose a novel method to evaluate the validity of ML pipelines, without their execution, using a surrogate model (AVATAR). The AVATAR generates a knowledge base by automatically learning the capabilities and effects of ML algorithms on datasets' characteristics. This knowledge base is used for a simplified mapping from an original ML pipeline to a surrogate model which is a Petri net based pipeline. Instead of executing the original ML pipeline to evaluate its validity, the AVATAR evaluates its surrogate model constructed by capabilities and effects of the ML pipeline components and input/output simplified mappings. Evaluating this surrogate model is less resource-intensive than the execution of the original pipeline. As a result, the AVATAR enables the pipeline composition and optimisation methods to evaluate more pipelines by quickly rejecting invalid pipelines. We integrate the AVATAR into the sequential model-based algorithm configuration (SMAC). Our experiments show that when SMAC employs AVATAR, it finds better solutions than on its own.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2020

An Online Learning Algorithm for a Neuro-Fuzzy Classifier with Mixed-Attribute Data

General fuzzy min-max neural network (GFMMNN) is one of the efficient neuro-fuzzy systems for data classification. However, one of the downsides of its original learning algorithms is the inability to handle and learn from the mixed-attribute data. While categorical features encoding methods can be used with the GFMMNN learning algorithms, they exhibit a lot of shortcomings. Other approaches proposed in the literature are not suitable for on-line learning as they require entire training data available in the learning phase. With the rapid change in the volume and velocity of streaming data in many application areas, it is increasingly required that the constructed models can learn and adapt to the continuous data changes in real-time without the need for their full retraining or access to the historical data. This paper proposes an extended online learning algorithm for the GFMMNN. The proposed method can handle the datasets with both continuous and categorical features. The extensive experiments confirmed superior and stable classification performance of the proposed approach in comparison to other relevant learning algorithms for the GFMM model.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2020

An in-depth comparison of methods handling mixed-attribute data for general fuzzy min-max neural network

A general fuzzy min-max (GFMM) neural network is one of the efficient neuro-fuzzy systems for classification problems. However, a disadvantage of most of the current learning algorithms for GFMM is that they can handle effectively numerical valued features only. Therefore, this paper provides some potential approaches to adapting GFMM learning algorithms for classification problems with mixed-type or only categorical features as they are very common in practical applications and often carry very useful information. We will compare and assess three main methods of handling datasets with mixed features, including the use of encoding methods, the combination of the GFMM model with other classifiers, and employing the specific learning algorithms for both types of features. The experimental results showed that the target and James-Stein are appropriate categorical encoding methods for learning algorithms of GFMM models, while the combination of GFMM neural networks and decision trees is a flexible way to enhance the classification performance of GFMM models on datasets with the mixed features. The learning algorithms with the mixed-type feature abilities are potential approaches to deal with mixed-attribute data in a natural way, but they need further improvement to achieve a better classification accuracy. Based on the analysis, we also identify the strong and weak points of different methods and propose potential research directions.

cs.LG↗