Related papers: Efficient Learning of Optimal Markov Network Topol…
In an earlier paper we introduced a special kind of k-width junction tree, called k-th order t-cherry junction tree in order to approximate a joint probability distribution. The approximation is the best if the Kullback-Leibler divergence…
Designing well-connected graphs is a fundamental problem that frequently arises in various contexts across science and engineering. The weighted number of spanning trees, as a connectivity measure, emerges in numerous problems and plays a…
We consider two core algorithmic problems for probabilistic verification: the maximal end-component decomposition and the almost-sure reachability set computation for Markov decision processes (MDPs). For MDPs with treewidth $k$, we present…
We present improved learning-augmented algorithms for finding an approximate minimum spanning tree (MST) for points in an arbitrary metric space. Our work follows a recent framework called metric forest completion (MFC), where the learned…
We consider the branch-length estimation problem on a bifurcating tree: a character evolves along the edges of a binary tree according to a two-state symmetric Markov process, and we seek to recover the edge transition probabilities from…
Polytrees are a subclass of Bayesian networks that seek to capture the conditional dependencies between a set of $n$ variables as a directed forest and are motivated by their more efficient inference and improved interpretability. Since the…
We consider the minimum spanning tree problem in a setting where the edge weights are stochastic from unknown distributions, and the only available information is a single sample of each edge's weight distribution. In this setting, we…
We study lifted weight learning of Markov logic networks. We show that there is an algorithm for maximum-likelihood learning of 2-variable Markov logic networks which runs in time polynomial in the domain size. Our results are based on…
We provide finite sample guarantees for the classical Chow-Liu algorithm (IEEE Trans.~Inform.~Theory, 1968) to learn a tree-structured graphical model of a distribution. For a distribution $P$ on $\Sigma^n$ and a tree $T$ on $n$ nodes, we…
We provide high probability finite sample complexity guarantees for hidden non-parametric structure learning of tree-shaped graphical models, whose hidden and observable nodes are discrete random variables with either finite or countable…
We study the minimal spanning arborescence which is the directed analogue of the minimal spanning tree, with a particular focus on its infinite volume limit and its geometric properties. We prove that in a certain large class of transient…
Parameter estimation in Markov random fields (MRFs) is a difficult task, in which inference over the network is run in the inner loop of a gradient descent procedure. Replacing exact inference with approximate methods such as loopy belief…
We develop and analyze methods for computing provably optimal {\em maximum a posteriori} (MAP) configurations for a subclass of Markov random fields defined on graphs with cycles. By decomposing the original distribution into a convex…
Given a graph G, the {\em maximum internal spanning tree problem} (MIST for short) asks for computing a spanning tree T of G such that the number of internal vertices in T is maximized. MIST has possible applications in the design of…
This paper tightens the best known analysis of Hein's 1989 algorithm to infer the topology of a weighted tree based on the lengths of paths between its leaves. It shows that the number of length queries required for a degree-$k$ tree of $n$…
We consider the problem of optimally compressing and caching data across a communication network. Given the data generated at edge nodes and a routing path, our goal is to determine the optimal data compression ratios and caching decisions…
Reachability and shortest path problems are NL-complete for general graphs. They are known to be in L for graphs of tree-width 2 [JT07]. However, for graphs of tree-width larger than 2, no bound better than NL is known. In this paper, we…
This paper studies a Markov chain for phylogenetic reconstruction which uses a popular transition between tree topologies known as subtree pruning-and-regrafting (SPR). We analyze the Markov chain in the simpler setting that the generating…
In the laminar-constrained spanning tree problem, the goal is to find a minimum-cost spanning tree which respects upper bounds on the number of times each cut in a given laminar family is crossed. This generalizes the well-studied…
In the longest plane spanning tree problem, we are given a finite planar point set $\mathcal{P}$, and our task is to find a plane (i.e., noncrossing) spanning tree for $\mathcal{P}$ with maximum total Euclidean edge length. Despite more…