skip to main content


Title: Faster Matchings via Learned Duals
A recent line of research investigates how algorithms can be augmented with machine-learned predictions to overcome worst case lower bounds. This area has revealed interesting algorithmic insights into problems, with particular success in the design of competitive online algorithms. However, the question of improving algorithm running times with predictions has largely been unexplored. We take a first step in this direction by combining the idea of machine-learned predictions with the idea of "warm-starting" primal-dual algorithms. We consider one of the most important primitives in combinatorial optimization: weighted bipartite matching and its generalization to b-matching. We identify three key challenges when using learned dual variables in a primal-dual algorithm. First, predicted duals may be infeasible, so we give an algorithm that efficiently maps predicted infeasible duals to nearby feasible solutions. Second, once the duals are feasible, they may not be optimal, so we show that they can be used to quickly find an optimal solution. Finally, such predictions are useful only if they can be learned, so we show that the problem of learning duals for matching has low sample complexity. We validate our theoretical findings through experiments on both real and synthetic data. As a result we give a rigorous, practical, and empirically effective method to compute bipartite matchings.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1909111
NSF-PAR ID:
10341916
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Advances in neural information processing systems
Volume:
34
Issue:
`
ISSN:
1049-5258
Page Range / eLocation ID:
10393 - 10406
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. We consider the question of speeding up classic graph algorithms with machine-learned predictions. In this model, algorithms are furnished with extra advice learned from past or similar instances. Given the additional information, we aim to improve upon the traditional worst-case run-time guarantees. Our contributions are the following: (i) We give a faster algorithm for minimum-weight bipartite matching via learned duals, improving the recent result by Dinitz, Im, Lavastida, Moseley and Vassilvitskii (NeurIPS, 2021); (ii) We extend the learned dual approach to the single-source shortest path problem (with negative edge lengths), achieving an almost linear runtime given sufficiently accurate predictions which improves upon the classic fastest algorithm due to Goldberg (SIAM J. Comput., 1995); (iii) We provide a general reduction-based framework for learning-based graph algorithms, leading to new algorithms for degree-constrained subgraph and minimum-cost 0-1 flow, based on reductions to bipartite matching and the shortest path problem. Finally, we give a set of general learnability theorems, showing that the predictions required by our algorithms can be efficiently learned in a PAC fashion 
    more » « less
  2. null (Ed.)
    We present an $\tilde O(m+n^{1.5})$-time randomized algorithm for maximum cardinality bipartite matching and related problems (e.g. transshipment, negative-weight shortest paths, and optimal transport) on $m$-edge, $n$-node graphs. For maximum cardinality bipartite matching on moderately dense graphs, i.e. $m = \Omega(n^{1.5})$, our algorithm runs in time nearly linear in the input size and constitutes the first improvement over the classic $O(m\sqrt{n})$-time [Dinic 1970; Hopcroft-Karp 1971; Karzanov 1973] and $\tilde O(n^\omega)$-time algorithms [Ibarra-Moran 1981] (where currently $\omega\approx 2.373$). On sparser graphs, i.e. when $m = n^{9/8 + \delta}$ for any constant $\delta>0$, our result improves upon the recent advances of [Madry 2013] and [Liu-Sidford 2020b, 2020a] which achieve an $\tilde O(m^{4/3+o(1)})$ runtime. We obtain these results by combining and advancing recent lines of research in interior point methods (IPMs) and dynamic graph algorithms. First, we simplify and improve the IPM of [v.d.Brand-Lee-Sidford-Song 2020], providing a general primal-dual IPM framework and new sampling-based techniques for handling infeasibility induced by approximate linear system solvers. Second, we provide a simple sublinear-time algorithm for detecting and sampling high-energy edges in electric flows on expanders and show that when combined with recent advances in dynamic expander decompositions, this yields efficient data structures for maintaining the iterates of both [v.d.Brand~et~al.] and our new IPMs. Combining this general machinery yields a simpler $\tilde O(n \sqrt{m})$ time algorithm for matching based on the logarithmic barrier function, and our state-of-the-art $\tilde O(m+n^{1.5})$ time algorithm for matching based on the [Lee-Sidford 2014] barrier (as regularized in [v.d.Brand~et~al.]). 
    more » « less
  3. We propose a sequential algorithm for learning sparse radial basis approximations for streaming data. The initial phase of the algorithm formulates the RBF training as a convex optimization problem with an objective function on the expansion weights while the data fitting problem imposed only as an ℓ∞-norm constraint. Each new data point observed is tested for feasibility, i.e., whether the data fitting constraint is satisfied. If so, that point is discarded and no model update is required. If it is infeasible, a new basic variable is added to the linear program. The result is a primal infeasible-dual feasible solution. The dual simplex algorithm is applied to determine a new optimal solution. A large fraction of the streaming data points does not require updates to the RBF model since they are similar enough to previously observed data and satisfy the data fitting constraints. The structure of the simplex algorithm makes the update to the solution particularly efficient given the inverse of the new basis matrix is easily computed from the old inverse. The second phase of the algorithm involves a non-convex refinement of the convex problem. Given the sparse nature of the LP solution, the computational expense of the non-convex algorithm is greatly reduced. We have also found that a small subset of the training data that includes the novel data identified by the algorithm can be used to train the non-convex optimization problem with substantial computation savings and comparable errors on the test data. We illustrate the method on the Mackey-Glass chaotic time-series, the monthly sunspot data, and a Fort Collins, Colorado weather data set. In each case we compare the results to artificial neural networks (ANN) and standard skew-RBFs. 
    more » « less
  4. null (Ed.)
    The problem of learning to generalize on unseen classes during the training step, also known as few-shot classification, has attracted considerable attention. Initialization based methods, such as the gradient-based model agnostic meta-learning (MAML) [1], tackle the few-shot learning problem by “learning to fine-tune”. The goal of these approaches is to learn proper model initialization so that the classifiers for new classes can be learned from a few labeled examples with a small number of gradient update steps. Few shot meta-learning is well-known with its fast-adapted capability and accuracy generalization onto unseen tasks [2]. Learning fairly with unbiased outcomes is another significant hallmark of human intelligence, which is rarely touched in few-shot meta-learning. In this work, we propose a novel Primal-Dual Fair Meta-learning framework, namely PDFM, which learns to train fair machine learning models using only a few examples based on data from related tasks. The key idea is to learn a good initialization of a fair model’s primal and dual parameters so that it can adapt to a new fair learning task via a few gradient update steps. Instead of manually tuning the dual parameters as hyperparameters via a grid search, PDFM optimizes the initialization of the primal and dual parameters jointly for fair meta-learning via a subgradient primal-dual approach. We further instantiate an example of bias controlling using decision boundary covariance (DBC) [3] as the fairness constraint for each task, and demonstrate the versatility of our proposed approach by applying it to classification on a variety of three real-world datasets. Our experiments show substantial improvements over the best prior work for this setting. 
    more » « less
  5. We consider the problem of designing sublinear time algorithms for estimating the cost of minimum] metric traveling salesman (TSP) tour. Specifically, given access to a n × n distance matrix D that specifies pairwise distances between n points, the goal is to estimate the TSP cost by performing only sublinear (in the size of D) queries. For the closely related problem of estimating the weight of a metric minimum spanning tree (MST), it is known that for any epsilon > 0, there exists an O^~(n/epsilon^O(1))-time algorithm that returns a (1+epsilon)-approximate estimate of the MST cost. This result immediately implies an O^~(n/epsilon^O(1)) time algorithm to estimate the TSP cost to within a (2 + epsilon) factor for any epsilon > 0. However, no o(n^2)-time algorithms are known to approximate metric TSP to a factor that is strictly better than 2. On the other hand, there were also no known barriers that rule out existence of (1 + epsilon)-approximate estimation algorithms for metric TSP with O^~ (n) time for any fixed epsilon > 0. In this paper, we make progress on both algorithms and lower bounds for estimating metric TSP cost. On the algorithmic side, we first consider the graphic TSP problem where the metric D corresponds to shortest path distances in a connected unweighted undirected graph. We show that there exists an O^~(n) time algorithm that estimates the cost of graphic TSP to within a factor of (2 − epsilon_0) for some epsilon_0 > 0. This is the first sublinear cost estimation algorithm for graphic TSP that achieves an approximation factor less than 2. We also consider another well-studied special case of metric TSP, namely, (1, 2)-TSP where all distances are either 1 or 2, and give an O^~(n ^ 1.5) time algorithm to estimate optimal cost to within a factor of 1.625. Our estimation algorithms for graphic TSP as well as for (1, 2)-TSP naturally lend themselves to O^~(n) space streaming algorithms that give an 11/6-approximation for graphic TSP and a 1.625-approximation for (1, 2)-TSP. These results motivate the natural question if analogously to metric MST, for any epsilon > 0, (1 + epsilon)-approximate estimates can be obtained for graphic TSP and (1, 2)-TSP using O^~ (n) queries. We answer this question in the negative – there exists an epsilon_0 > 0, such that any algorithm that estimates the cost of graphic TSP ((1, 2)-TSP) to within a (1 + epsilon_0)-factor, necessarily requires (n^2) queries. This lower bound result highlights a sharp separation between the metric MST and metric TSP problems. Similarly to many classical approximation algorithms for TSP, our sublinear time estimation algorithms utilize subroutines for estimating the size of a maximum matching in the underlying graph. We show that this is not merely an artifact of our approach, and that for any epsilon > 0, any algorithm that estimates the cost of graphic TSP or (1, 2)-TSP to within a (1 + epsilon)-factor, can also be used to estimate the size of a maximum matching in a bipartite graph to within an epsilon n additive error. This connection allows us to translate known lower bounds for matching size estimation in various models to similar lower bounds for metric TSP cost estimation. 
    more » « less