Simulation-assisted machine learning.

Journal: Bioinformatics (Oxford, England)
Published Date:

Abstract

MOTIVATION: In a predictive modeling setting, if sufficient details of the system behavior are known, one can build and use a simulation for making predictions. When sufficient system details are not known, one typically turns to machine learning, which builds a black-box model of the system using a large dataset of input sample features and outputs. We consider a setting which is between these two extremes: some details of the system mechanics are known but not enough for creating simulations that can be used to make high quality predictions. In this context we propose using approximate simulations to build a kernel for use in kernelized machine learning methods, such as support vector machines. The results of multiple simulations (under various uncertainty scenarios) are used to compute similarity measures between every pair of samples: sample pairs are given a high similarity score if they behave similarly under a wide range of simulation parameters. These similarity values, rather than the original high dimensional feature data, are used to build the kernel.

Authors

  • Timo M Deist
    Department of Radiation Oncology (MAASTRO Clinic), Dr. Tanslaan 12, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
  • Andrew Patti
    Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
  • Zhaoqi Wang
    Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
  • David Krane
    Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston 02114, MA, USA.
  • Taylor Sorenson
    Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
  • David Craft
    Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston 02114, MA, USA.