Bingzhao Zhu

Bingzhao Zhu, Xingjian Shi, Nick Erickson et al.

The success of self-supervised learning in computer vision and natural language processing has motivated pretraining methods on tabular data. However, most existing tabular self-supervised learning models fail to leverage information across multiple data tables and cannot generalize to new tables. In this work, we introduce XTab, a framework for cross-table pretraining of tabular transformers on datasets from various domains. We address the challenge of inconsistent column types and quantities among tables by utilizing independent featurizers and using federated learning to pretrain the shared component. Tested on 84 tabular prediction tasks from the OpenML-AutoML Benchmark (AMLB), we show that (1) XTab consistently boosts the generalizability, learning speed, and performance of multiple tabular transformers, (2) by pretraining FT-Transformer via XTab, we achieve superior performance than other state-of-the-art tabular deep learning models on various tasks such as regression, binary, and multiclass classification.

Bingzhao Zhu, Mahsa Shoaran

Decision trees have been widely used as classifiers in many machine learning applications thanks to their lightweight and interpretable decision process. This paper introduces Tree in Tree decision graph (TnT), a framework that extends the conventional decision tree to a more generic and powerful directed acyclic graph. TnT constructs decision graphs by recursively growing decision trees inside the internal or leaf nodes instead of greedy training. The time complexity of TnT is linear to the number of nodes in the graph, and it can construct decision graphs on large datasets. Compared to decision trees, we show that TnT achieves better classification performance with reduced model size, both as a stand-alone classifier and as a base estimator in bagging/AdaBoost ensembles. Our proposed model is a novel, more efficient, and accurate alternative to the widely-used decision trees.

Bingzhao Zhu, Mahsa Shoaran

Modern machine learning tools have shown promise in detecting symptoms of neurological disorders. However, current approaches typically train a unique classifier for each subject. This subject-specific training scheme requires long labeled recordings from each patient, thus failing to detect symptoms in new patients with limited recordings. This paper introduces an unsupervised domain adaptation approach based on adversarial networks to enable few-shot, cross-subject epileptic seizure detection. Using adversarial learning, features from multiple patients were encoded into a subject-invariant space and a discriminative model was trained on subject-invariant features to make predictions. We evaluated this approach on the intracranial EEG (iEEG) recordings from 9 patients with epilepsy. Our approach enabled cross-subject seizure detection with a 9.4\% improvement in 1-shot classification accuracy compared to the conventional subject-specific scheme.

Bingzhao Zhu, Uisub Shin, Mahsa Shoaran

Neural interfaces capable of multi-site electrical recording, on-site signal classification, and closed-loop therapy are critical for the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders. However, deploying machine learning algorithms on low-power neural devices is challenging, given the tight constraints on computational and memory resources for such devices. In this paper, we review the recent developments in embedding machine learning in neural interfaces, with a focus on design trade-offs and hardware efficiency. We also present our optimized tree-based model for low-power and memory-efficient classification of neural signal in brain implants. Using energy-aware learning and model compression, we show that the proposed oblique trees can outperform conventional machine learning models in applications such as seizure or tremor detection and motor decoding.

Bingzhao Zhu, Masoud Farivar, Mahsa Shoaran

Classifiers that can be implemented on chip with minimal computational and memory resources are essential for edge computing in emerging applications such as medical and IoT devices. This paper introduces a machine learning model based on oblique decision trees to enable resource-efficient classification on a neural implant. By integrating model compression with probabilistic routing and implementing cost-aware learning, our proposed model could significantly reduce the memory and hardware cost compared to state-of-the-art models, while maintaining the classification accuracy. We trained the resource-efficient oblique tree with power-efficient regularization (ResOT-PE) on three neural classification tasks to evaluate the performance, memory, and hardware requirements. On seizure detection task, we were able to reduce the model size by 3.4X and the feature extraction cost by 14.6X compared to the ensemble of boosted trees, using the intracranial EEG from 10 epilepsy patients. In a second experiment, we tested the ResOT-PE model on tremor detection for Parkinson's disease, using the local field potentials from 12 patients implanted with a deep-brain stimulation (DBS) device. We achieved a comparable classification performance as the state-of-the-art boosted tree ensemble, while reducing the model size and feature extraction cost by 10.6X and 6.8X, respectively. We also tested on a 6-class finger movement detection task using ECoG recordings from 9 subjects, reducing the model size by 17.6X and feature computation cost by 5.1X. The proposed model can enable a low-power and memory-efficient implementation of classifiers for real-time neurological disease detection and motor decoding.