A Boltzmann-machine-enhanced Transformer For DNA Sequence Classification

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Hauptverfasser: Cao, Zhixuan, Xu, Yishu, WU, Xuang
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Cao, Zhixuan
Xu, Yishu
WU, Xuang
author_facet Cao, Zhixuan
Xu, Yishu
WU, Xuang
contents DNA sequence classification requires not only high predictive accuracy but also the ability to uncover latent site interactions, combinatorial regulation, and epistasis-like higher-order dependencies. Although the standard Transformer provides strong global modeling capacity, its softmax attention is continuous, dense, and weakly constrained, making it better suited for information routing than explicit structure discovery. In this paper, we propose a Boltzmann-machine-enhanced Transformer for DNA sequence classification. Built on multi-head attention, the model introduces structured binary gating variables to represent latent query-key connections and constrains them with a Boltzmann-style energy function. Query-key similarity defines local bias terms, learnable pairwise interactions capture synergy and competition between edges, and latent hidden units model higher-order combinatorial dependencies. Since exact posterior inference over discrete gating graphs is intractable, we use mean-field variational inference to estimate edge activation probabilities and combine it with Gumbel-Softmax to progressively compress continuous probabilities into near-discrete gates while preserving end-to-end differentiability. During training, we jointly optimize classification and energy losses, encouraging the model to achieve accurate prediction while favoring low-energy, stable, and interpretable structures. We further derive the framework from the energy function and variational free energy to the mean-field fixed-point equations, Gumbel-Softmax relaxation, and the final joint objective. The proposed framework provides a unified view of integrating Boltzmann machines, differentiable discrete optimization, and Transformers for structured learning on biological sequences.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_26465
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Boltzmann-machine-enhanced Transformer For DNA Sequence Classification
Cao, Zhixuan
Xu, Yishu
WU, Xuang
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
68T07, 92D20
I.2.6; I.5.1; J.3
DNA sequence classification requires not only high predictive accuracy but also the ability to uncover latent site interactions, combinatorial regulation, and epistasis-like higher-order dependencies. Although the standard Transformer provides strong global modeling capacity, its softmax attention is continuous, dense, and weakly constrained, making it better suited for information routing than explicit structure discovery. In this paper, we propose a Boltzmann-machine-enhanced Transformer for DNA sequence classification. Built on multi-head attention, the model introduces structured binary gating variables to represent latent query-key connections and constrains them with a Boltzmann-style energy function. Query-key similarity defines local bias terms, learnable pairwise interactions capture synergy and competition between edges, and latent hidden units model higher-order combinatorial dependencies. Since exact posterior inference over discrete gating graphs is intractable, we use mean-field variational inference to estimate edge activation probabilities and combine it with Gumbel-Softmax to progressively compress continuous probabilities into near-discrete gates while preserving end-to-end differentiability. During training, we jointly optimize classification and energy losses, encouraging the model to achieve accurate prediction while favoring low-energy, stable, and interpretable structures. We further derive the framework from the energy function and variational free energy to the mean-field fixed-point equations, Gumbel-Softmax relaxation, and the final joint objective. The proposed framework provides a unified view of integrating Boltzmann machines, differentiable discrete optimization, and Transformers for structured learning on biological sequences.
title A Boltzmann-machine-enhanced Transformer For DNA Sequence Classification
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
68T07, 92D20
I.2.6; I.5.1; J.3
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.26465