A kinetic-based regularization method for data science applications

Authors:
  • AGAbhisek Ganguly
    Abhisek Ganguly
  • AGAlessandro Gabbana
    Alessandro Gabbana
  • VRVybhav Rao
    Vybhav Rao
  • SSSauro Succi
    Sauro Succi
  • SASantosh Ansumali
    Santosh Ansumali

Abstract
We propose a physics-based regularization technique for function learning, inspired by statistical mechanics. By drawing an analogy between optimizing the parameters of an interpolator and minimizing the energy of a system, we introduce corrections that impose constraints on the lower-order moments of the data distribution. This minimizes the discrepancy between the discrete and continuum representations of the data, in turn allowing to access more favorable energy landscapes, thus improving the accuracy of the interpolator. Our approach improves performance in both interpolation and regression tasks, even in high-dimensional spaces. Unlike traditional methods, it does not require empirical parameter tuning, making it particularly effective for handling noisy data. We also show that thanks to its local nature, the method offers computational and memory efficiency advantages over Radial Basis Function interpolators, especially for large datasets.