Enabling Mixed Effects Neural Networks for Diverse, Clustered Data Using Monte Carlo Methods

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Tschalzev, Andrej, Nitschke, Paul, Kirchdorfer, Lukas, Lüdtke, Stefan, Bartelt, Christian, Stuckenschmidt, Heiner
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Tschalzev, Andrej
Nitschke, Paul
Kirchdorfer, Lukas
Lüdtke, Stefan
Bartelt, Christian
Stuckenschmidt, Heiner
author_facet Tschalzev, Andrej
Nitschke, Paul
Kirchdorfer, Lukas
Lüdtke, Stefan
Bartelt, Christian
Stuckenschmidt, Heiner
contents Neural networks often assume independence among input data samples, disregarding correlations arising from inherent clustering patterns in real-world datasets (e.g., due to different sites or repeated measurements). Recently, mixed effects neural networks (MENNs) which separate cluster-specific 'random effects' from cluster-invariant 'fixed effects' have been proposed to improve generalization and interpretability for clustered data. However, existing methods only allow for approximate quantification of cluster effects and are limited to regression and binary targets with only one clustering feature. We present MC-GMENN, a novel approach employing Monte Carlo methods to train Generalized Mixed Effects Neural Networks. We empirically demonstrate that MC-GMENN outperforms existing mixed effects deep learning models in terms of generalization performance, time complexity, and quantification of inter-cluster variance. Additionally, MC-GMENN is applicable to a wide range of datasets, including multi-class classification tasks with multiple high-cardinality categorical features. For these datasets, we show that MC-GMENN outperforms conventional encoding and embedding methods, simultaneously offering a principled methodology for interpreting the effects of clustering patterns.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_01115
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Enabling Mixed Effects Neural Networks for Diverse, Clustered Data Using Monte Carlo Methods
Tschalzev, Andrej
Nitschke, Paul
Kirchdorfer, Lukas
Lüdtke, Stefan
Bartelt, Christian
Stuckenschmidt, Heiner
Machine Learning
Neural networks often assume independence among input data samples, disregarding correlations arising from inherent clustering patterns in real-world datasets (e.g., due to different sites or repeated measurements). Recently, mixed effects neural networks (MENNs) which separate cluster-specific 'random effects' from cluster-invariant 'fixed effects' have been proposed to improve generalization and interpretability for clustered data. However, existing methods only allow for approximate quantification of cluster effects and are limited to regression and binary targets with only one clustering feature. We present MC-GMENN, a novel approach employing Monte Carlo methods to train Generalized Mixed Effects Neural Networks. We empirically demonstrate that MC-GMENN outperforms existing mixed effects deep learning models in terms of generalization performance, time complexity, and quantification of inter-cluster variance. Additionally, MC-GMENN is applicable to a wide range of datasets, including multi-class classification tasks with multiple high-cardinality categorical features. For these datasets, we show that MC-GMENN outperforms conventional encoding and embedding methods, simultaneously offering a principled methodology for interpreting the effects of clustering patterns.
title Enabling Mixed Effects Neural Networks for Diverse, Clustered Data Using Monte Carlo Methods
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.01115