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Haoxiang Huang

Publications and source records attributed to Haoxiang Huang.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

Shared Randomness and Parallel Rounds in Permutation Sampling

We study the shared randomness needed to sample a uniform permutation in parallel output rounds. Coordinates committed in the same round are independent conditional on the complete history and the current shared choice. Previous outputs are public; local computation and private randomness are free. We charge each shared choice by the logarithm of its conditional support size and sum these costs along the worst execution path. At every fixed round density $ρ\in(0,1)$, the optimal limiting total-variation error under any $o(n)$ shared budget matches the conditional-marginal optimum, even with arbitrary local kernels and adaptive coordination. A fixed improvement requires linear cost. For exact sampling in $R=Θ(n)$ rounds, the optimum is $nΦ(R/n)+O(\log n)$, where $Φ$ linearly interpolates $Φ(1/q)=\log q$. A protocol attaining this rate uses an initial seed and at most one further binary shared choice. When $\lceil n/2\rceil\le R\le n$, the finite optimum is $\log\binom{2(n-R)}{n-R}$, attained by an initial seed alone. The approximate converse uses an entropy inequality for sparse injections to control overlap with the target. The exact construction reuses randomness retained in a shared label partition after the first-stage outputs are exposed.

cs.IT↗

Multi-Horizon Future Discovery for Physics-Informed Exploration

Exploration in physical control environments requires agents to identify actions whose consequences reveal previously unexplored aspects of the underlying dynamics. However, many intrinsic motivation methods rely on immediate prediction errors, state novelty, or local physical changes, which may overlook informative outcomes that emerge across extended temporal horizons. We investigate whether learning structured representations of reachable futures can provide a more effective basis for exploration. To this end, we introduce Hamiltonian Temporal Contrastive Curiosity (HTC$^2$), a framework that combines multi-horizon temporal representation learning with Hamiltonian phase-space structure. A horizon-conditioned contrastive critic learns temporal relationships from future-state pairs sampled within the same episode. The distance between positive-pair representations is then used as an intrinsic reward, encouraging the agent to explore futures that remain insufficiently organized in the learned representation. To incorporate information about physical dynamics, we additionally modulate this reward using bounded multi-step Hamiltonian variation, rather than directly rewarding changes in the Hamiltonian itself. We integrate HTC$^2$ with both Soft Actor-Critic (SAC) and Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO), and evaluate it across six DeepMind Control Suite tasks. Comparisons with ICM, RIDE, E3B, Plan2Explore, and a single-step Hamiltonian curiosity baseline are complemented by state-coverage evaluations, component ablations, and phase-space diagnostics to characterize the contributions of temporal learning and physical structure to exploratory behavior.

cs.LG↗

GeoCo-SAVi: Geometry-Consistent Slot Attention for Explicitly Editable Object Representations

Object-centric video models represent scenes with slots, yet exposed geometry can vary in meaning with appearance. In Invariant Slot Attention (ISA), explicit position and scale can disagree with the decoded center and extent; edits can yield unexpected motion or resizing, and replacing appearance can shift geometry. GeoCo-SAVi promotes geometric authority and semantic alignment. Its spatially equivariant, object-wise decoder makes position and scale effective commands: changing them moves or resizes the rendered support. Factual position alignment ties position to the decoded center, and normalized attention overlap discourages duplicate allocation. Appearance transplantation aligns geometry semantics across objects, so recipient geometry governs layout while donor appearance supplies shape. On Obj3D, GeoCo-SAVi matches ISA reconstruction, reduces latent-position-to-decoded-centroid error by nearly 90%, and reduces appearance-induced size variation while producing the expected translation and scale responses. On 250 MOVi-C videos, it improves reconstruction and instance grouping over both same-protocol references, and video editing over STAITUS. GeoCo-SAVi transforms explicit geometry into compositional control, making both position and scale more readable and editable. Project page: https://GeoCo-SAVi.github.io/.

cs.CV↗

HamiFormer: Dual-Expert Diffusion Fields with Affine Symplectic Maps

Predicting smooth dynamics and collisions requires modeling continuous evolution and abrupt state changes. We introduce HamiFormer, a dual-expert diffusion field combining whole-window denoising with residual-corrected Hamiltonian propagation. Their mixed-state feedback attenuates the direct contribution of inherited autoregressive error: each mixed state guides subsequent propagation within the jointly refined window. Parallel Local Affine Scan (PLAS) amortizes iterative refinement across rectified-flow steps and evaluates derivatives in parallel across physical time. PLAS's affine symplectic maps achieve lower solver error and runtime than sequential explicit Euler in our evaluation. A Regime Model Tree specializes residuals and routing to balance typical-state accuracy against large tail errors. Our analysis gives conditions for physically consistent refinement and warm-start tracking, and finite-window error bounds under diffusion feedback. In 192-step evaluations, HamiFormer reduces normalized phase-space MSE by 26.3% against PhysiFormer on HamiBalls-1 and 21.4% against DiT on HamiBalls-2, with comparable model capacities. Disjoint-interval comparisons show the lowest late-horizon position and momentum errors among baselines on both datasets. Project page: https://hamiformer.github.io/.

cs.LG↗

MOSH-WM: Mask-Grounded Soft-Hamiltonian Dynamics for Object-Centric World Models

Object-centric world models forecast future videos by evolving a set of entity slots, but the variables receiving dynamics supervision are often unconstrained visual features. We introduce \method{}, a mask-grounded soft-Hamiltonian world model that makes its position-like state explicitly depend on slot-owned image support. A frozen video-slot encoder produces slots and masks; spatial moments of mask-owned support form a canonical state $Q$, temporal differences form $P$, and a learned energy supplies a soft directional bias to a bounded learned increment. Decoder-relevant appearance and identity are stored separately in a causal visual context. A gated composer and bounded residual then combine this context with the propagated phase state to reconstruct decoder-compatible slots. On OBJ3D, given six observed frames and evaluated over the following 30 frames, \method{} reduces LPIPS by 25.0\% and spatial MSE by 33.7\% relative to the strongest object-centric baseline. On CLEVRER, given six observed frames and evaluated over the following ten frames, the corresponding reductions are 14.5\% and 18.7\%. Horizon-resolved visual and object-state measurements show that the complete model accumulates error more slowly throughout the 30-frame closed-loop rollout. Project page:https://github.com/moshwm-anon/-moshwm-anon.github.io.

cs.LG↗

Neural Network with Local Converging Input (NNLCI) for Supersonic Flow Problems with Unstructured Grids

In recent years, surrogate models based on deep neural networks (DNN) have been widely used to solve partial differential equations, which were traditionally handled by means of numerical simulations. This kind of surrogate models, however, focuses on global interpolation of the training dataset, and thus requires a large network structure. The process is both time consuming and computationally costly, thereby restricting their use for high-fidelity prediction of complex physical problems. In the present study, we develop a neural network with local converging input (NNLCI) for high-fidelity prediction using unstructured data. The framework utilizes the local domain of dependence with converging coarse solutions as input, which greatly reduces computational resource and training time. As a validation case, the NNLCI method is applied to study inviscid supersonic flows in channels with bumps. Different bump geometries and locations are considered to benchmark the effectiveness and versability of the proposed approach. Detailed flow structures, including shock-wave interactions, are examined systematically.

math.NA↗

Perturbation Analysis of Neural Collapse

Training deep neural networks for classification often includes minimizing the training loss beyond the zero training error point. In this phase of training, a "neural collapse" behavior has been observed: the variability of features (outputs of the penultimate layer) of within-class samples decreases and the mean features of different classes approach a certain tight frame structure. Recent works analyze this behavior via idealized unconstrained features models where all the minimizers exhibit exact collapse. However, with practical networks and datasets, the features typically do not reach exact collapse, e.g., because deep layers cannot arbitrarily modify intermediate features that are far from being collapsed. In this paper, we propose a richer model that can capture this phenomenon by forcing the features to stay in the vicinity of a predefined features matrix (e.g., intermediate features). We explore the model in the small vicinity case via perturbation analysis and establish results that cannot be obtained by the previously studied models. For example, we prove reduction in the within-class variability of the optimized features compared to the predefined input features (via analyzing gradient flow on the "central-path" with minimal assumptions), analyze the minimizers in the near-collapse regime, and provide insights on the effect of regularization hyperparameters on the closeness to collapse. We support our theory with experiments in practical deep learning settings.

cs.LG↗

Deep Probability Estimation

Reliable probability estimation is of crucial importance in many real-world applications where there is inherent (aleatoric) uncertainty. Probability-estimation models are trained on observed outcomes (e.g. whether it has rained or not, or whether a patient has died or not), because the ground-truth probabilities of the events of interest are typically unknown. The problem is therefore analogous to binary classification, with the difference that the objective is to estimate probabilities rather than predicting the specific outcome. This work investigates probability estimation from high-dimensional data using deep neural networks. There exist several methods to improve the probabilities generated by these models but they mostly focus on model (epistemic) uncertainty. For problems with inherent uncertainty, it is challenging to evaluate performance without access to ground-truth probabilities. To address this, we build a synthetic dataset to study and compare different computable metrics. We evaluate existing methods on the synthetic data as well as on three real-world probability estimation tasks, all of which involve inherent uncertainty: precipitation forecasting from radar images, predicting cancer patient survival from histopathology images, and predicting car crashes from dashcam videos. We also give a theoretical analysis of a model for high-dimensional probability estimation which reproduces several of the phenomena evinced in our experiments. Finally, we propose a new method for probability estimation using neural networks, which modifies the training process to promote output probabilities that are consistent with empirical probabilities computed from the data. The method outperforms existing approaches on most metrics on the simulated as well as real-world data.

cs.LG↗

Neural Networks with Local Converging Inputs (NNLCI) for Solving Conservation Laws, Part II: 2D Problems

In our prior work [arXiv:2109.09316], neural network methods with inputs based on domain of dependence and a converging sequence were introduced for solving one dimensional conservation laws, in particular the Euler systems. To predict a high-fidelity solution at a given space-time location, two solutions of a conservation law from a converging sequence, computed from low-cost numerical schemes, and in a local domain of dependence of the space-time location, serve as the input of a neural network. In the present work, we extend the methods to two dimensional Euler systems and introduce variations. Numerical results demonstrate that the methods not only work very well in one dimension [arXiv:2109.09316], but also perform well in two dimensions. Despite smeared local input data, the neural network methods are able to predict shocks, contacts, and smooth regions of the solution accurately. The neural network methods are efficient and relatively easy to train because they are local solvers.

math.NA↗

Neural Networks with Inputs Based on Domain of Dependence and A Converging Sequence for Solving Conservation Laws, Part I: 1D Riemann Problems

Recent research works for solving partial differential equations (PDEs) with deep neural networks (DNNs) have demonstrated that spatiotemporal function approximators defined by auto-differentiation are effective for approximating nonlinear problems, e.g. the Burger's equation, heat conduction equations, Allen-Cahn and other reaction-diffusion equations, and Navier-Stokes equation. Meanwhile, researchers apply automatic differentiation in physics-informed neural network (PINN) to solve nonlinear hyperbolic systems based on conservation laws with highly discontinuous transition, such as Riemann problem, by inverse problem formulation in data-driven approach. However, it remains a challenge for forward methods using DNNs without knowing part of the solution to resolve discontinuities in nonlinear conservation laws. In this study, we incorporate 1st order numerical schemes into DNNs to set up the loss functional approximator instead of auto-differentiation from traditional deep learning framework, e.g. TensorFlow package, which improves the effectiveness of capturing discontinuities in Riemann problems. In particular, the 2-Coarse-Grid neural network (2CGNN) and 2-Diffusion-Coefficient neural network (2DCNN) are introduced in this work. We use 2 solutions of a conservation law from a converging sequence, computed from a low-cost numerical scheme, and in a domain of dependence of a space-time grid point as the input for a neural network to predict its high-fidelity solution at the grid point. Despite smeared input solutions, they output sharp approximations to solutions containing shocks and contacts and are efficient to use once trained.

math.NA↗