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The goal of this paper is to characterize function distributions that general neural networks trained by descent algorithms (GD/SGD), can or cannot learn in polytime. The results are: (1) The paradigm of general neural networks trained by SGD is poly‐time universal: any function distribution that can be learned from samples in polytime can also be learned by a poly‐size neural net trained by SGD with polynomial parameters. In particular, this can be achieved despite polynomial noise on the gradients, implying a separation result between SGD‐based deep learning and statistical query algorithms, as the latter are not comparably universal due to cases like parities. This also shows that deep learning does not suffer from the limitations of shallow networks. (2) The paper further gives a lower‐bound on the generalization error of descent algorithms, which relies on two quantities: the cross‐predictability, an average‐case quantity related to the statistical dimension, and the null‐flow, a quantity specific to descent algorithms. The lower‐bound implies in particular that for functions of low enough cross‐predictability, the above robust universality breaks down once the gradients are averaged over too many samples (as in perfect GD) rather than fewer (as in SGD). (3) Finally, it is shown that if larger amounts of noise are added on the initialization and on the gradients, then SGD is no longer comparably universal due again to distributions having low enough cross‐predictability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reed-Muller (RM) codes are among the oldest, simplest and perhaps most ubiquitous family of codes. They are used in many areas of coding theory in both electrical engineering and computer science. Yet, many of their important properties are still under investigation. This paper covers some of the recent developments regarding the weight enumerator and the capacity-achieving properties of RM codes, as well as some of the algorithmic developments. In particular, the paper discusses the recent connections established between RM codes, thresholds of Boolean functions, polarization theory, hypercontractivity, and the techniques of approximating low weight codewords using lower degree polynomials (when codewords are viewed as evaluation vectors of degree r polynomials in m variables). It then overviews some of the algorithms for decoding RM codes. It covers both algorithms with provable performance guarantees for every block length, as well as algorithms with state-of-the-art performances in practical regimes, which do not perform as well for large block length. Finally, the paper concludes with a few open problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a new class of efficient decoding algorithms for Reed-Muller (RM) codes over binary-input memoryless channels. The algorithms are based on projecting the code on its cosets, recursively decoding the projected codes (which are lower-order RM codes), and aggregating the reconstructions (e.g., using majority votes). We further provide extensions of the algorithms using list-decoding. We run our algorithm for AWGN channels and Binary Symmetric Channels at the short code length (≤ 1024) regime for a wide range of code rates. Simulation results show that in both low code rate and high code rate regimes, the new algorithm outperforms the widely used decoder for polar codes (SCL+CRC) with the same parameters. The performance of the new algorithm for RM codes in those regimes is in fact close to that of the maximal likelihood decoder. Finally, the new decoder naturally allows for parallel implementations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We derive generalization and excess risk bounds for neural networks using a family of complexity measures based on a multilevel relative entropy. The bounds are obtained by introducing the notion of generated hierarchical coverings of neural networks and by using the technique of chaining mutual information introduced by Asadi et al. '18. The resulting bounds are algorithm-dependent and multiscale: they exploit the multilevel structure of neural networks. This, in turn, leads to an empirical risk minimization problem with a multilevel entropic regularization. The minimization problem is resolved by introducing a multiscale extension of the celebrated Gibbs posterior distribution, proving that the derived distribution achieves the unique minimum. This leads to a new training procedure for neural networks with performance guarantees, which exploits the chain rule of relative entropy rather than the chain rule of derivatives (as in backpropagation), and which takes into account the interactions between different scales of the hypothesis sets of neural networks corresponding to different depths of the hidden layers. To obtain an efficient implementation of the latter, we further develop a multilevel Metropolis algorithm simulating the multiscale Gibbs distribution, with an experiment for a two-layer neural network on the MNIST data set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a paper that initiated the modern study of the stochastic block model (SBM), Decelle, Krzakala, Moore, and Zdeborová, backed by Mossel, Neeman, and Sly, conjectured that detecting clusters in the symmetric SBM in polynomial time is always possible above the Kesten‐Stigum (KS) threshold, while it is possible to detect clusters information theoretically (i.e., not necessarily in polynomial time) below the KS threshold when the number of clusters k is at least 4. Massoulié, Mossel et al., and Bordenave, Lelarge, and Massoulié proved that the KS threshold is in fact efficiently achievable for k = 2, while Mossel et al. proved that it cannot be crossed at k = 2. The above conjecture remained open for k ≥ 3. This paper proves the two parts of the conjecture, further extending the results to general SBMs. For the efficient part, an approximate acyclic belief propagation (ABP) algorithm is developed and proved to detect communities for any k down to the KS threshold in quasi‐linear time. Achieving this requires showing optimality of ABP in the presence of cycles, a challenge for message‐passing algorithms. The paper further connects ABP to a power iteration method on a nonbacktracking operator of generalized order, formalizing the interplay between message passing and spectral methods. For the information‐theoretic part, a nonefficient algorithm sampling a typical clustering is shown to break down the KS threshold at k = 4. The emerging gap is shown to be large in some cases, making the SBM a good case study for information‐computation gaps. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]