arXiv subjects

Linas Vepstas

Publications and source records attributed to Linas Vepstas.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2019

Sheaves: A Topological Approach to Big Data

This document develops general concepts useful for extracting knowledge embedded in large graphs or datasets that have pair-wise relationships, such as cause-effect-type relations. Almost no underlying assumptions are made, other than that the data can be presented in terms of pair-wise relationships between objects/events. This assumption is used to mine for patterns in the dataset, defining a reduced graph or dataset that boils-down or concentrates information into a more compact form. The resulting extracted structure or set of patterns are manifestly symbolic in nature, as they capture and encode the graph structure of the dataset in terms of a (generative) grammar. This structure is identified as having the formal mathematical structure of a sheaf. In essence, this paper introduces the basic concepts of sheaf theory into the domain of graphical datasets.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2018

On the Beta Transformation

The beta transformation is the iterated map $\beta x\,\mod1$; it generates the base-$\beta$ expansion of a real number x. Every iterated piece-wise monotonic map is topologically conjugate to the beta transformation. For all but a countable subset of $\beta$, the orbits of $x$ are ergodic; yet it is the finite orbits that determine overall behavior. This is a large text; it splits into four parts. The first part provides a review of general concepts and properties associated with the beta shift. The second part examines the spectrum of the Ruelle-Frobenius-Perron operator, and gives explicit expressions for a set of bounded eigenfunctions. These form a discrete spectrum, accumulating on a circle of radius $1/\beta$ in the complex plane. The third part examines the finite and the periodic orbits. These are in one-to-one correspondence with monic integer polynomials. They are "quasi-cyclotomic" and can be counted with Moreau's necklace-counting function; curiously, they do not have any obvious relation to other systems countable by the necklace function. The positive real roots are dense in the reals; they include the Golden and silver ratios, the Pisot numbers, the n-bonacci (tribonacci, tetranacci, etc.) numbers. The beta-polynomials yoke all of these together into a regular structure. An explicit bijection to the rationals is presented. The fourth part of this text examines small perturbations. These introduce Arnold tongues, which inflate the finite orbits, a set of measure zero, to finite size. This text assumes very little mathematical sophistication on the part of the reader, and should be approachable for any enthusiast with minimal or no prior experience in ergodic theory. Most of the development is casual. As a side effect, the introductory sections are perhaps a fair bit longer than strictly needed to present the new results.

math.DS↗

arXiv2017

Symbol Grounding via Chaining of Morphisms

A new model of symbol grounding is presented, in which the structures of natural language, logical semantics, perception and action are represented categorically, and symbol grounding is modeled via the composition of morphisms between the relevant categories. This model gives conceptual insight into the fundamentally systematic nature of symbol grounding, and also connects naturally to practical real-world AI systems in current research and commercial use. Specifically, it is argued that the structure of linguistic syntax can be modeled as a certain asymmetric monoidal category, as e.g. implicit in the link grammar formalism; the structure of spatiotemporal relationships and action plans can be modeled similarly using "image grammars" and "action grammars"; and common-sense logical semantic structure can be modeled using dependently-typed lambda calculus with uncertain truth values. Given these formalisms, the grounding of linguistic descriptions in spatiotemporal perceptions and coordinated actions consists of following morphisms from language to logic through to spacetime and body (for comprehension), and vice versa (for generation). The mapping is indicated between the spatial relationships in the Region Connection Calculus and Allen Interval Algebra and corresponding entries in the link grammar syntax parsing dictionary. Further, the abstractions introduced here are shown to naturally model the structures and systems currently being deployed in the context of using the OpenCog cognitive architecture to control Hanson Robotics humanoid robots.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2014

Learning Language from a Large (Unannotated) Corpus

A novel approach to the fully automated, unsupervised extraction of dependency grammars and associated syntax-to-semantic-relationship mappings from large text corpora is described. The suggested approach builds on the authors' prior work with the Link Grammar, RelEx and OpenCog systems, as well as on a number of prior papers and approaches from the statistical language learning literature. If successful, this approach would enable the mining of all the information needed to power a natural language comprehension and generation system, directly from a large, unannotated corpus.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2013

Durkheim Project Data Analysis Report

This report describes the suicidality prediction models created under the DARPA DCAPS program in association with the Durkheim Project [http://durkheimproject.org/]. The models were built primarily from unstructured text (free-format clinician notes) for several hundred patient records obtained from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). The models were constructed using a genetic programming algorithm applied to bag-of-words and bag-of-phrases datasets. The influence of additional structured data was explored but was found to be minor. Given the small dataset size, classification between cohorts was high fidelity (98%). Cross-validation suggests these models are reasonably predictive, with an accuracy of 50% to 69% on five rotating folds, with ensemble averages of 58% to 67%. One particularly noteworthy result is that word-pairs can dramatically improve classification accuracy; but this is the case only when one of the words in the pair is already known to have a high predictive value. By contrast, the set of all possible word-pairs does not improve on a simple bag-of-words model.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2011

Yet Another Riemann Hypothesis

This short note presents a peculiar generalization of the Riemann hypothesis, as the action of the permutation group on the elements of continued fractions. The problem is difficult to attack through traditional analytic techniques, and thus this note focuses on providing a numerical survey. These results indicate a broad class of previously unexamined functions may obey the Riemann hypothesis in general, and even share the non-trivial zeros in particular.

math.NT↗

arXiv2010

On Plouffe's Ramanujan Identities

Recently, Simon Plouffe has discovered a number of identities for the Riemann zeta function at odd integer values. These identities are obtained numerically and are inspired by a prototypical series for Apery's constant given by Ramanujan: $ζ(3)=\frac{7π^3}{180}-2\sum_{n=1}^\infty\frac{1}{n^3(e^{2πn}-1)}$ Such sums follow from a general relation given by Ramanujan, which is rediscovered and proved here using complex analytic techniques. The general relation is used to derive many of Plouffe's identities as corollaries. The resemblance of the general relation to the structure of theta functions and modular forms is briefly sketched.

math.NT↗

arXiv2008

On the Minkowski Measure

The Minkowski Question Mark function relates the continued-fraction representation of the real numbers, to their binary expansion. This function is peculiar in many ways; one is that its derivative is 'singular'. One can show by classical techniques that its derivative must vanish on all rationals. Since the Question Mark itself is continuous, one concludes that the derivative must be non-zero on the irrationals, and is thus a discontinuous-everywhere function. This derivative is the subject of this essay. Various results are presented here: First, a simple but formal measure-theoretic construction of the derivative is given, making it clear that it has a very concrete existence as a Lebesgue-Stieltjes measure, and thus is safe to manipulate in various familiar ways. Next, an exact result is given, expressing the measure as an infinite product of piece-wise continuous functions, with each piece being a Mobius transform of the form (ax+b)/(cx+d). This construction is then shown to be the Haar measure of a certain transfer operator. A general proof is given that any transfer operator can be understood to be nothing more nor less than a push-forward on a Banach space; such push-forwards induce an invariant measure, the Haar measure, of which the Minkowski measure can serve as a prototypical example. Some minor notes pertaining to it's relation to the Gauss-Kuzmin-Wirsing operator are made.

math.DS↗

arXiv2007

On Differences of Zeta Values

Finite differences of values of the Riemann zeta function at the integers are explored. Such quantities, which occur as coefficients in Newton series representations, have surfaced in works of Maslanka, Coffey, Baez-Duarte, Voros and others. We apply the theory of Norlund-Rice integrals in conjunction with the saddle point method and derive precise asymptotic estimates. The method extends to Dirichlet L-functions and our estimates appear to be partly related to earlier investigations surrounding Li's criterion for the Riemann hypothesis.

math.CA↗

arXiv2007

An efficient algorithm for accelerating the convergence of oscillatory series, useful for computing the polylogarithm and Hurwitz zeta functions

This paper sketches a technique for improving the rate of convergence of a general oscillatory sequence, and then applies this series acceleration algorithm to the polylogarithm and the Hurwitz zeta function. As such, it may be taken as an extension of the techniques given by Borwein's "An efficient algorithm for computing the Riemann zeta function", to more general series. The algorithm provides a rapid means of evaluating Li_s(z) for general values of complex s and the region of complex z values given by |z^2/(z-1)|<4. Alternatively, the Hurwitz zeta can be very rapidly evaluated by means of an Euler-Maclaurin series. The polylogarithm and the Hurwitz zeta are related, in that two evaluations of the one can be used to obtain a value of the other; thus, either algorithm can be used to evaluate either function. The Euler-Maclaurin series is a clear performance winner for the Hurwitz zeta, while the Borwein algorithm is superior for evaluating the polylogarithm in the kidney-shaped region. Both algorithms are superior to the simple Taylor's series or direct summation. The primary, concrete result of this paper is an algorithm allows the exploration of the Hurwitz zeta in the critical strip, where fast algorithms are otherwise unavailable. A discussion of the monodromy group of the polylogarithm is included.

math.CA↗