Active Manifolds: A non-linear analogue to Active Subspaces

Robert Bridges, Anthony Gruber, Christopher Felder, Miki Verma, Chelsey Hoff
Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Machine Learning, PMLR 97:764-772, 2019.

Abstract

We present an approach to analyze $C^1(\mathbb{R}^m)$ functions that addresses limitations present in the Active Subspaces (AS) method of Constantine et al. (2014; 2015). Under appropriate hypotheses, our Active Manifolds (AM) method identifies a 1-D curve in the domain (the active manifold) on which nearly all values of the unknown function are attained, which can be exploited for approximation or analysis, especially when $m$ is large (high-dimensional input space). We provide theorems justifying our AM technique and an algorithm permitting functional approximation and sensitivity analysis. Using accessible, low-dimensional functions as initial examples, we show AM reduces approximation error by an order of magnitude compared to AS, at the expense of more computation. Following this, we revisit the sensitivity analysis by Glaws et al. (2017), who apply AS to analyze a magnetohydrodynamic power generator model, and compare the performance of AM on the same data. Our analysis provides detailed information not captured by AS, exhibiting the influence of each parameter individually along an active manifold. Overall, AM represents a novel technique for analyzing functional models with benefits including: reducing $m$-dimensional analysis to a 1-D analogue, permitting more accurate regression than AS (at more computational expense), enabling more informative sensitivity analysis, and granting accessible visualizations (2-D plots) of parameter sensitivity along the AM.

Cite this Paper

BibTeX
@InProceedings{pmlr-v97-bridges19a, title = {Active Manifolds: A non-linear analogue to Active Subspaces}, author = {Bridges, Robert and Gruber, Anthony and Felder, Christopher and Verma, Miki and Hoff, Chelsey}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Machine Learning}, pages = {764--772}, year = {2019}, editor = {Chaudhuri, Kamalika and Salakhutdinov, Ruslan}, volume = {97}, series = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research}, month = {09--15 Jun}, publisher = {PMLR}, pdf = {http://proceedings.mlr.press/v97/bridges19a/bridges19a.pdf}, url = {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v97/bridges19a.html}, abstract = {We present an approach to analyze $C^1(\mathbb{R}^m)$ functions that addresses limitations present in the Active Subspaces (AS) method of Constantine et al. (2014; 2015). Under appropriate hypotheses, our Active Manifolds (AM) method identifies a 1-D curve in the domain (the active manifold) on which nearly all values of the unknown function are attained, which can be exploited for approximation or analysis, especially when $m$ is large (high-dimensional input space). We provide theorems justifying our AM technique and an algorithm permitting functional approximation and sensitivity analysis. Using accessible, low-dimensional functions as initial examples, we show AM reduces approximation error by an order of magnitude compared to AS, at the expense of more computation. Following this, we revisit the sensitivity analysis by Glaws et al. (2017), who apply AS to analyze a magnetohydrodynamic power generator model, and compare the performance of AM on the same data. Our analysis provides detailed information not captured by AS, exhibiting the influence of each parameter individually along an active manifold. Overall, AM represents a novel technique for analyzing functional models with benefits including: reducing $m$-dimensional analysis to a 1-D analogue, permitting more accurate regression than AS (at more computational expense), enabling more informative sensitivity analysis, and granting accessible visualizations (2-D plots) of parameter sensitivity along the AM.} }
Endnote
%0 Conference Paper %T Active Manifolds: A non-linear analogue to Active Subspaces %A Robert Bridges %A Anthony Gruber %A Christopher Felder %A Miki Verma %A Chelsey Hoff %B Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Machine Learning %C Proceedings of Machine Learning Research %D 2019 %E Kamalika Chaudhuri %E Ruslan Salakhutdinov %F pmlr-v97-bridges19a %I PMLR %P 764--772 %U https://proceedings.mlr.press/v97/bridges19a.html %V 97 %X We present an approach to analyze $C^1(\mathbb{R}^m)$ functions that addresses limitations present in the Active Subspaces (AS) method of Constantine et al. (2014; 2015). Under appropriate hypotheses, our Active Manifolds (AM) method identifies a 1-D curve in the domain (the active manifold) on which nearly all values of the unknown function are attained, which can be exploited for approximation or analysis, especially when $m$ is large (high-dimensional input space). We provide theorems justifying our AM technique and an algorithm permitting functional approximation and sensitivity analysis. Using accessible, low-dimensional functions as initial examples, we show AM reduces approximation error by an order of magnitude compared to AS, at the expense of more computation. Following this, we revisit the sensitivity analysis by Glaws et al. (2017), who apply AS to analyze a magnetohydrodynamic power generator model, and compare the performance of AM on the same data. Our analysis provides detailed information not captured by AS, exhibiting the influence of each parameter individually along an active manifold. Overall, AM represents a novel technique for analyzing functional models with benefits including: reducing $m$-dimensional analysis to a 1-D analogue, permitting more accurate regression than AS (at more computational expense), enabling more informative sensitivity analysis, and granting accessible visualizations (2-D plots) of parameter sensitivity along the AM.
APA
Bridges, R., Gruber, A., Felder, C., Verma, M. & Hoff, C.. (2019). Active Manifolds: A non-linear analogue to Active Subspaces. Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Machine Learning, in Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 97:764-772 Available from https://proceedings.mlr.press/v97/bridges19a.html.

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