Robust Unsupervised Multi-task and Transfer Learning on Gaussian Mixture Models

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Tian, Ye, Weng, Haolei, Xia, Lucy, Feng, Yang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2022
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author Tian, Ye
Weng, Haolei
Xia, Lucy
Feng, Yang
author_facet Tian, Ye
Weng, Haolei
Xia, Lucy
Feng, Yang
contents Unsupervised learning has been widely used in many real-world applications. One of the simplest and most important unsupervised learning models is the Gaussian mixture model (GMM). In this work, we study the multi-task learning problem on GMMs, which aims to leverage potentially similar GMM parameter structures among tasks to obtain improved learning performance compared to single-task learning. We propose a multi-task GMM learning procedure based on the EM algorithm that effectively utilizes unknown similarities between related tasks and is robust against a fraction of outlier tasks from arbitrary distributions. The proposed procedure is shown to achieve the minimax optimal rate of convergence for both parameter estimation error and the excess mis-clustering error, in a wide range of regimes. Moreover, we generalize our approach to tackle the problem of transfer learning for GMMs, where similar theoretical results are derived. Additionally, iterative unsupervised multi-task and transfer learning methods may suffer from an initialization alignment problem, and two alignment algorithms are proposed to resolve the issue. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our methods through simulations and real data examples. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work studying multi-task and transfer learning on GMMs with theoretical guarantees.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2209_15224
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Robust Unsupervised Multi-task and Transfer Learning on Gaussian Mixture Models
Tian, Ye
Weng, Haolei
Xia, Lucy
Feng, Yang
Machine Learning
Statistics Theory
Methodology
Unsupervised learning has been widely used in many real-world applications. One of the simplest and most important unsupervised learning models is the Gaussian mixture model (GMM). In this work, we study the multi-task learning problem on GMMs, which aims to leverage potentially similar GMM parameter structures among tasks to obtain improved learning performance compared to single-task learning. We propose a multi-task GMM learning procedure based on the EM algorithm that effectively utilizes unknown similarities between related tasks and is robust against a fraction of outlier tasks from arbitrary distributions. The proposed procedure is shown to achieve the minimax optimal rate of convergence for both parameter estimation error and the excess mis-clustering error, in a wide range of regimes. Moreover, we generalize our approach to tackle the problem of transfer learning for GMMs, where similar theoretical results are derived. Additionally, iterative unsupervised multi-task and transfer learning methods may suffer from an initialization alignment problem, and two alignment algorithms are proposed to resolve the issue. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our methods through simulations and real data examples. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work studying multi-task and transfer learning on GMMs with theoretical guarantees.
title Robust Unsupervised Multi-task and Transfer Learning on Gaussian Mixture Models
topic Machine Learning
Statistics Theory
Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.15224