Multi-task learning of complex networks via nonlinear ordinary differential equations
摘要
Complex systems are characterized by many underlying entities and their intricate interactions. We contextualize ecological niche theory and evolutionary game theory through a system of nonlinear mixed ordinary differential equations (nMODEs) to reconstruct informative, dynamic, omnidirectional, and personalized networks (idopNetworks) for complex systems at any dimension. We implement a multi-task learning (MTL) algorithm into the matrix form of linearized nMODEs to execute two coupled tasks for group-level and elementwise sparsity on nonlinear feature representations. Beyond existing networking practice, MTL-based idopNetworks can capture all-around interacting links, nonlinearities, and emergent properties of a complex system, which, to a larger extent, approximate the complexity of complex systems. We apply our model to learn gene regulatory idopNetworks from transcriptional data for parasite Plasmodium falciparum, identifying previously-unknown regulatory roles of several genes in mediating malaria infection. Our model provides insight of machine learning to analyze, model, and interpret complex data in a non-Euclidean space.