arXiv subjects

Kamel Lahouel

Publications and source records attributed to Kamel Lahouel.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Time Series Classification through Diffeomorphic Time Warping (DiffTW)

Time series classification involves learning a mapping from a continuous, temporally ordered sequence of real-valued observations to discrete response variables, like class labels. This task is fundamental in domains, including health monitoring, where temporal structure is critical for prediction. Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) is a standard technique for measuring similarity between sequences varying in time or speed. However, DTW is restricted to discrete point matching. Moving beyond pairwise alignment, we propose a theoretical framework learning mappings between real-valued functions. These mappings approximate the flow associated with the characteristic curves of a linear transport equation with a space-dependent velocity field, providing a diffeomorphic transformation between time series. Using the method of characteristics, we transform this partial differential equation into ordinary differential equations (ODEs) modeling system dynamics. The objective function to learn these ODEs derives from the fundamental theorem of calculus. To enable flexible, expressive representations of the velocity field, we utilize reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces and optimal control methods. Our method, Diffeomorphic Time Warping (DiffTW), provides a theoretically grounded dissimilarity measure. Using a 1-nearest neighbor classifier, DiffTW outperforms unconstrained DTW on 39 of 85 datasets with 3 ties; however, constrained DTW outperforms DiffTW on 48 of 85 datasets with 5 ties.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2025

The Stochastic Occupation Kernel (SOCK) Method for Learning Stochastic Differential Equations

We present a novel kernel-based method for learning multivariate stochastic differential equations (SDEs). The method follows a two-step procedure: we first estimate the drift term function, then the (matrix-valued) diffusion function given the drift. Occupation kernels are integral functionals on a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS) that aggregate information over a trajectory. Our approach leverages vector-valued occupation kernels for estimating the drift component of the stochastic process. For diffusion estimation, we extend this framework by introducing operator-valued occupation kernels, enabling the estimation of an auxiliary matrix-valued function as a positive semi-definite operator, from which we readily derive the diffusion estimate. This enables us to avoid common challenges in SDE learning, such as intractable likelihoods, by optimizing a reconstruction-error-based objective. We propose a simple learning procedure that retains strong predictive accuracy while using Fenchel duality to promote efficiency. We validate the method on simulated benchmarks and a real-world dataset of Amyloid imaging in healthy and Alzheimer's disease subjects.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2025

MOCK: an Algorithm for Learning Nonparametric Differential Equations via Multivariate Occupation Kernel Functions

Learning a nonparametric system of ordinary differential equations from trajectories in a $d$-dimensional state space requires learning $d$ functions of $d$ variables. Explicit formulations often scale quadratically in $d$ unless additional knowledge about system properties, such as sparsity and symmetries, is available. In this work, we propose a linear approach, the multivariate occupation kernel method (MOCK), using the implicit formulation provided by vector-valued reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces. The solution for the vector field relies on multivariate occupation kernel functions associated with the trajectories and scales linearly with the dimension of the state space. We validate through experiments on a variety of simulated and real datasets ranging from 2 to 1024 dimensions. MOCK outperforms all other comparators on 3 of the 9 datasets on full trajectory prediction and 4 out of the 9 datasets on next-point prediction.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2025

ROCK: A variational formulation for occupation kernel methods in Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces

We present a Representer Theorem result for a large class of weak formulation problems. We provide examples of applications of our formulation both in traditional machine learning and numerical methods as well as in new and emerging techniques. Finally we apply our formulation to generalize the multivariate occupation kernel (MOCK) method for learning dynamical systems from data proposing the more general Riesz Occupation Kernel (ROCK) method. Our generalized methods are both more computationally efficient and performant on most of the benchmarks we test against.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2024

The Stochastic Occupation Kernel Method for System Identification

The method of occupation kernels has been used to learn ordinary differential equations from data in a non-parametric way. We propose a two-step method for learning the drift and diffusion of a stochastic differential equation given snapshots of the process. In the first step, we learn the drift by applying the occupation kernel algorithm to the expected value of the process. In the second step, we learn the diffusion given the drift using a semi-definite program. Specifically, we learn the diffusion squared as a non-negative function in a RKHS associated with the square of a kernel. We present examples and simulations.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2023

Learning nonparametric ordinary differential equations from noisy data

Learning nonparametric systems of Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) dot x = f(t,x) from noisy data is an emerging machine learning topic. We use the well-developed theory of Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces (RKHS) to define candidates for f for which the solution of the ODE exists and is unique. Learning f consists of solving a constrained optimization problem in an RKHS. We propose a penalty method that iteratively uses the Representer theorem and Euler approximations to provide a numerical solution. We prove a generalization bound for the L2 distance between x and its estimator and provide experimental comparisons with the state-of-the-art.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2015

Coarse-to-fine Multiple Testing Strategies

We analyze control of the familywise error rate (FWER) in a multiple testing scenario with a great many null hypotheses about the distribution of a high-dimensional random variable among which only a very small fraction are false, or "active". In order to improve power relative to conservative Bonferroni bounds, we explore a coarse-to-fine procedure adapted to a situation in which tests are partitioned into subsets, or "cells", and active hypotheses tend to cluster within cells. We develop procedures for a standard linear model with Gaussian data and a non-parametric case based on generalized permutation testing, and demonstrate considerably higher power than Bonferroni estimates at the same FWER when the active hypotheses do cluster. The main technical difficulty arises from the correlation between the test statistics at the individual and cell levels, which increases the likelihood of a hypothesis being falsely discovered when the cell that contains it is falsely discovered (survivorship bias). This requires sharp estimates of certain quadrant probabilities when a cell is inactive.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2015

Non-Adaptive Policies for 20 Questions Target Localization

The problem of target localization with noise is addressed. The target is a sample from a continuous random variable with known distribution and the goal is to locate it with minimum mean squared error distortion. The localization scheme or policy proceeds by queries, or questions, weather or not the target belongs to some subset as it is addressed in the 20-question framework. These subsets are not constrained to be intervals and the answers to the queries are noisy. While this situation is well studied for adaptive querying, this paper is focused on the non adaptive querying policies based on dyadic questions. The asymptotic minimum achievable distortion under such policies is derived. Furthermore, a policy named the Aurelian1 is exhibited which achieves asymptotically this distortion.

cs.IT↗