Mixtures of Neural Network Experts with Application to Phytoplankton Flow Cytometry Data

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Pawl, Ethan, Ribalet, François, Parker, Paul A., Hyun, Sangwon
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Pawl, Ethan
Ribalet, François
Parker, Paul A.
Hyun, Sangwon
author_facet Pawl, Ethan
Ribalet, François
Parker, Paul A.
Hyun, Sangwon
contents Flow cytometry is a valuable technique that measures the optical properties of particles at a single-cell resolution. When deployed in the ocean, flow cytometry allows oceanographers to study different types of photosynthetic microbes called phytoplankton. It is of great interest to study how phytoplankton properties change in response to environmental conditions. In our work, we develop a nonlinear mixture of experts model to estimate separate regression functions for each subpopulation utilizing random-weight neural networks. Our model allows one to flexibly estimate how cell properties and relative abundances depend on environmental covariates in each segment of a heterogeneous sample, without the computational burden of backpropagation. We show that the proposed model provides superior predictive performance in simulated examples compared to a mixture of linear experts. Also, applying our model to real data, we show that our model has (1) comparable out-of-sample prediction performance, and (2) more realistic estimates of phytoplankton behavior.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_01375
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Mixtures of Neural Network Experts with Application to Phytoplankton Flow Cytometry Data
Pawl, Ethan
Ribalet, François
Parker, Paul A.
Hyun, Sangwon
Methodology
Applications
Flow cytometry is a valuable technique that measures the optical properties of particles at a single-cell resolution. When deployed in the ocean, flow cytometry allows oceanographers to study different types of photosynthetic microbes called phytoplankton. It is of great interest to study how phytoplankton properties change in response to environmental conditions. In our work, we develop a nonlinear mixture of experts model to estimate separate regression functions for each subpopulation utilizing random-weight neural networks. Our model allows one to flexibly estimate how cell properties and relative abundances depend on environmental covariates in each segment of a heterogeneous sample, without the computational burden of backpropagation. We show that the proposed model provides superior predictive performance in simulated examples compared to a mixture of linear experts. Also, applying our model to real data, we show that our model has (1) comparable out-of-sample prediction performance, and (2) more realistic estimates of phytoplankton behavior.
title Mixtures of Neural Network Experts with Application to Phytoplankton Flow Cytometry Data
topic Methodology
Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.01375