Area under the ROC curve (AUC) is a standard metric that is used to measure classification performance for imbalanced class data. Developing stochastic learning algorithms that maximize AUC over accuracy is of practical interest. However, AUC maximization presents a challenge since the learning objective function is defined over a pair of instances of opposite classes. Existing methods circumvent this issue but with high space and time complexity. From our previous work of redefining AUC optimization as a convex-concave saddle point problem, we propose a new stochastic batch learning algorithm for AUC maximization. The key difference from our previous work is that we assume that the underlying distribution of the data is uniform, and we develop a batch learning algorithm that is a stochastic primal-dual algorithm (SPDAM) that achieves a linear convergence rate. We establish the theoretical convergence of SPDAM with high probability and demonstrate its effectiveness on standard benchmark datasets.
more »
« less
When AUC meets DRO: Optimizing Partial AUC for Deep Learning with Non-Convex Convergence Guarantee
In this paper, we propose systematic and efficient gradient-based methods for both one-way and two-way partial AUC (pAUC) maximization that are applicable to deep learning. We propose new formulations of pAUC surrogate objectives by using the distributionally robust optimization (DRO) to define the loss for each individual positive data. We consider two formulations of DRO, one of which is based on conditional-value-at-risk (CVaR) that yields a non-smooth but exact estimator for pAUC, and another one is based on a KL divergence regularized DRO that yields an inexact but smooth (soft) estimator for pAUC. For both one-way and two-way pAUC maximization, we propose two algorithms and prove their convergence for optimizing their two formulations, respectively. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms for pAUC maximization for deep learning on various datasets.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1733742
- PAR ID:
- 10390834
- Editor(s):
- Chaudhuri, Kamalika and
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Machine Learning
- Volume:
- 162
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 27548-27573
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
We consider the problem of learning the underlying structure of a general discrete pairwise Markov network. Existing approaches that rely on empirical risk minimization may perform poorly in settings with noisy or scarce data. To overcome these limitations, we propose a computationally efficient and robust learning method for this problem with near-optimal sample complexities. Our approach builds upon distributionally robust optimization (DRO) and maximum conditional log-likelihood. The proposed DRO estimator minimizes the worst-case risk over an ambiguity set of adversarial distributions within bounded transport cost or f-divergence of the empirical data distribution. We show that the primal minimax learning problem can be efficiently solved by leveraging sufficient statistics and greedy maximization in the ostensibly intractable dual formulation. Based on DRO’s approximation to Lipschitz and variance regularization, we derive near-optimal sample complexities matching existing results. Extensive empirical evidence with different corruption models corroborates the effectiveness of the proposed methods.more » « less
-
https://youtu.be/79Py8KU4_k0 (Ed.)We consider statistical methods that invoke a min-max distributionally robust formulation to extract good out-of-sample performance in data-driven optimization and learning problems. Acknowledging the distributional uncertainty in learning from limited samples, the min-max formulations introduce an adversarial inner player to explore unseen covariate data. The resulting distributionally robust optimization (DRO) formulations, which include Wasserstein DRO formulations (our main focus), are specified using optimal transportation phenomena. Upon describing how these infinite-dimensional min-max problems can be approached via a finite-dimensional dual reformulation, this tutorial moves into its main component, namely, explaining a generic recipe for optimally selecting the size of the adversary’s budget. This is achieved by studying the limit behavior of an optimal transport projection formulation arising from an inquiry on the smallest confidence region that includes the unknown population risk minimizer. Incidentally, this systematic prescription coincides with those in specific examples in high-dimensional statistics and results in error bounds that are free from the curse of dimensions. Equipped with this prescription, we present a central limit theorem for the DRO estimator and provide a recipe for constructing compatible confidence regions that are useful for uncertainty quantification. The rest of the tutorial is devoted to insights into the nature of the optimizers selected by the min-max formulations and additional applications of optimal transport projections.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)Summary We investigate optimal subsampling for quantile regression. We derive the asymptotic distribution of a general subsampling estimator and then derive two versions of optimal subsampling probabilities. One version minimizes the trace of the asymptotic variance-covariance matrix for a linearly transformed parameter estimator and the other minimizes that of the original parameter estimator. The former does not depend on the densities of the responses given covariates and is easy to implement. Algorithms based on optimal subsampling probabilities are proposed and asymptotic distributions, and the asymptotic optimality of the resulting estimators are established. Furthermore, we propose an iterative subsampling procedure based on the optimal subsampling probabilities in the linearly transformed parameter estimation which has great scalability to utilize available computational resources. In addition, this procedure yields standard errors for parameter estimators without estimating the densities of the responses given the covariates. We provide numerical examples based on both simulated and real data to illustrate the proposed method.more » « less
-
The goal of this paper is to develop a methodology for the systematic analysis of asymptotic statistical properties of data-driven DRO formulations based on their corresponding non-DRO counterparts. We illustrate our approach in various settings, including both phidivergence and Wasserstein uncertainty sets. Different types of asymptotic behaviors are obtained depending on the rate at which the uncertainty radius decreases to zero as a function of the sample size and the geometry of the uncertainty sets.more » « less