Gaussian processes (GPs) are very widely used for modeling of unknown functions or surfaces in applications ranging from regression to classification to spatial processes. Although there is an increasingly vast literature on applications, methods, theory and algorithms related to GPs, the overwhelming majority of this literature focuses on the case in which the input domain corresponds to a Euclidean space. However, particularly in recent years with the increasing collection of complex data, it is commonly the case that the input domain does not have such a simple form. For example, it is common for the inputs to be restricted to a non-Euclidean manifold, a case which forms the motivation for this article. In particular, we propose a general extrinsic framework for GP modeling on manifolds, which relies on embedding of the manifold into a Euclidean space and then constructing extrinsic kernels for GPs on their images. These extrinsic Gaussian processes (eGPs) are used as prior distributions for unknown functions in Bayesian inferences. Our approach is simple and general, and we show that the eGPs inherit fine theoretical properties from GP models in Euclidean spaces. We consider applications of our models to regression and classification problems with predictors lying in a large class of manifolds, including spheres, planar shape spaces, a space of positive definite matrices, and Grassmannians. Our models can be readily used by practitioners in biological sciences for various regression and classification problems, such as disease diagnosis or detection. Our work is also likely to have impact in spatial statistics when spatial locations are on the sphere or other geometric spaces.
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Extrinsic Bayesian Optimization on Manifolds
We propose an extrinsic Bayesian optimization (eBO) framework for general optimization problems on manifolds. Bayesian optimization algorithms build a surrogate of the objective function by employing Gaussian processes and utilizing the uncertainty in that surrogate by deriving an acquisition function. This acquisition function represents the probability of improvement based on the kernel of the Gaussian process, which guides the search in the optimization process. The critical challenge for designing Bayesian optimization algorithms on manifolds lies in the difficulty of constructing valid covariance kernels for Gaussian processes on general manifolds. Our approach is to employ extrinsic Gaussian processes by first embedding the manifold onto some higher dimensional Euclidean space via equivariant embeddings and then constructing a valid covariance kernel on the image manifold after the embedding. This leads to efficient and scalable algorithms for optimization over complex manifolds. Simulation study and real data analyses are carried out to demonstrate the utilities of our eBO framework by applying the eBO to various optimization problems over manifolds such as the sphere, the Grassmannian, and the manifold of positive definite matrices.
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- PAR ID:
- 10431612
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Algorithms
- Volume:
- 16
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 1999-4893
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 117
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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