Pouya M Ghari

Pouya M Ghari, Yanning Shen

Communication efficiency arises as a necessity in federated learning due to limited communication bandwidth. To this end, the present paper develops an algorithmic framework where an ensemble of pre-trained models is learned. At each learning round, the server selects a subset of pre-trained models to construct the ensemble model based on the structure of a graph, which characterizes the server's confidence in the models. Then only the selected models are transmitted to the clients, such that certain budget constraints are not violated. Upon receiving updates from the clients, the server refines the structure of the graph accordingly. The proposed algorithm is proved to enjoy sub-linear regret bound. Experiments on real datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our novel approach.

Pouya M Ghari, Yanning Shen

Online learning with expert advice is widely used in various machine learning tasks. It considers the problem where a learner chooses one from a set of experts to take advice and make a decision. In many learning problems, experts may be related, henceforth the learner can observe the losses associated with a subset of experts that are related to the chosen one. In this context, the relationship among experts can be captured by a feedback graph, which can be used to assist the learner's decision making. However, in practice, the nominal feedback graph often entails uncertainties, which renders it impossible to reveal the actual relationship among experts. To cope with this challenge, the present work studies various cases of potential uncertainties, and develops novel online learning algorithms to deal with uncertainties while making use of the uncertain feedback graph. The proposed algorithms are proved to enjoy sublinear regret under mild conditions. Experiments on real datasets are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the novel algorithms.

Pouya M Ghari, Yanning Shen

Multi-kernel learning (MKL) has been widely used in function approximation tasks. The key problem of MKL is to combine kernels in a prescribed dictionary. Inclusion of irrelevant kernels in the dictionary can deteriorate accuracy of MKL, and increase the computational complexity. To improve the accuracy of function approximation and reduce the computational complexity, the present paper studies data-driven selection of kernels from the dictionary that provide satisfactory function approximations. Specifically, based on the similarities among kernels, the novel framework constructs and refines a graph to assist choosing a subset of kernels. In addition, random feature approximation is utilized to enable online implementation for sequentially obtained data. Theoretical analysis shows that our proposed algorithms enjoy tighter sub-linear regret bound compared with state-of-art graph-based online MKL alternatives. Experiments on a number of real datasets also showcase the advantages of our novel graph-aided framework.