TY - JOUR A1 - Wehlitz, Nathalie A1 - Sadeghi, Mohsen A1 - Montefusco, Alberto A1 - Schütte, Christof A1 - Pavliotis, Grigorios A. A1 - Winkelmann, Stefanie T1 - Approximating particle-based clustering dynamics by stochastic PDEs JF - SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems N2 - This work proposes stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs) as a practical tool to replicate clustering effects of more detailed particle-based dynamics. Inspired by membrane mediated receptor dynamics on cell surfaces, we formulate a stochastic particle-based model for diffusion and pairwise interaction of particles, leading to intriguing clustering phenomena. Employing numerical simulation and cluster detection methods, we explore the approximation of the particle-based clustering dynamics through mean-field approaches. We find that SPDEs successfully reproduce spatiotemporal clustering dynamics, not only in the initial cluster formation period, but also on longer time scales where the successive merging of clusters cannot be tracked by deterministic mean-field models. The computational efficiency of the SPDE approach allows us to generate extensive statistical data for parameter estimation in a simpler model that uses a Markov jump process to capture the temporal evolution of the cluster number. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1137/24M1676661 VL - 24 IS - 2 SP - 1231 EP - 1250 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kostré, Margarita A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Schütte, Christof A1 - Sunkara, Vikram T1 - Exploration of Particle Swarm Optimisation Algorithm with Divergent Parameters JF - Natural Computing Y1 - 2024 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Regényi, Enikő A1 - Mashreghi, Mir-Farzin A1 - Schütte, Christof A1 - Sunkara, Vikram T1 - Exploring transcription modalities from bimodal, single-cell RNA sequencing data JF - NAR Genomics and Bioinformatics N2 - Abstract There is a growing interest in generating bimodal, single-cell RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data for studying biological pathways. These data are predominantly utilized in understanding phenotypic trajectories using RNA velocities; however, the shape information encoded in the two-dimensional resolution of such data is not yet exploited. In this paper, we present an elliptical parametrization of two-dimensional RNA-seq data, from which we derived statistics that reveal four different modalities. These modalities can be interpreted as manifestations of the changes in the rates of splicing, transcription or degradation. We performed our analysis on a cell cycle and a colorectal cancer dataset. In both datasets, we found genes that are not picked up by differential gene expression analysis (DGEA), and are consequently unnoticed, yet visibly delineate phenotypes. This indicates that, in addition to DGEA, searching for genes that exhibit the discovered modalities could aid recovering genes that set phenotypes apart. For communities studying biomarkers and cellular phenotyping, the modalities present in bimodal RNA-seq data broaden the search space of genes, and furthermore, allow for incorporating cellular RNA processing into regulatory analyses. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/nargab/lqae179 SN - 2631-9268 VL - 6 IS - 4 PB - Oxford University Press (OUP) ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Ribera Borrell, Enric A1 - Richter, Lorenz A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Reinforcement Learning with Random Time Horizons T2 - Proceedings of the 42nd International Conference on Machine Learning Y1 - 2025 UR - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mlresearch/v267/main/assets/borrell25a/borrell25a.pdf VL - 267 SP - 5101 EP - 5123 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ribera Borrell, Enric A1 - Quer, Jannes A1 - Richter, Lorenz A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Improving control based importance sampling strategies for metastable diffusions via adapted metadynamics N2 - Sampling rare events in metastable dynamical systems is often a computationally expensive task and one needs to resort to enhanced sampling methods such as importance sampling. Since we can formulate the problem of finding optimal importance sampling controls as a stochastic optimization problem, this then brings additional numerical challenges and the convergence of corresponding algorithms might as well suffer from metastabilty. In this article we address this issue by combining systematic control approaches with the heuristic adaptive metadynamics method. Crucially, we approximate the importance sampling control by a neural network, which makes the algorithm in principle feasible for high dimensional applications. We can numerically demonstrate in relevant metastable problems that our algorithm is more effective than previous attempts and that only the combination of the two approaches leads to a satisfying convergence and therefore to an efficient sampling in certain metastable settings. T3 - ZIB-Report - 21-40 KW - importance sampling KW - stochastic optimal control KW - rare event simulation KW - metastability KW - neural networks KW - metadynamics Y1 - 2021 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schütte, Christof A1 - Klus, Stefan A1 - Hartmann, Carsten T1 - Overcoming the Timescale Barrier in Molecular Dynamics: Transfer Operators, Variational Principles, and Machine Learning JF - Acta Numerica N2 - One of the main challenges in molecular dynamics is overcoming the ‘timescale barrier’: in many realistic molecular systems, biologically important rare transitions occur on timescales that are not accessible to direct numerical simulation, even on the largest or specifically dedicated supercomputers. This article discusses how to circumvent the timescale barrier by a collection of transfer operator-based techniques that have emerged from dynamical systems theory, numerical mathematics and machine learning over the last two decades. We will focus on how transfer operators can be used to approximate the dynamical behaviour on long timescales, review the introduction of this approach into molecular dynamics, and outline the respective theory, as well as the algorithmic development, from the early numerics-based methods, via variational reformulations, to modern data-based techniques utilizing and improving concepts from machine learning. Furthermore, its relation to rare event simulation techniques will be explained, revealing a broad equivalence of variational principles for long-time quantities in molecular dynamics. The article will mainly take a mathematical perspective and will leave the application to real-world molecular systems to the more than 1000 research articles already written on this subject. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S0962492923000016 VL - 32 SP - 517 EP - 673 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Montefusco, Alberto A1 - Helfmann, Luzie A1 - Okunola, Toluwani A1 - Winkelmann, Stefanie A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Partial mean-field model for neurotransmission dynamics JF - Mathematical Biosciences N2 - This article addresses reaction networks in which spatial and stochastic effects are of crucial importance. For such systems, particle-based models allow us to describe all microscopic details with high accuracy. However, they suffer from computational inefficiency if particle numbers and density get too large. Alternative coarse-grained-resolution models reduce computational effort tremendously, e.g., by replacing the particle distribution by a continuous concentration field governed by reaction-diffusion PDEs. We demonstrate how models on the different resolution levels can be combined into hybrid models that seamlessly combine the best of both worlds, describing molecular species with large copy numbers by macroscopic equations with spatial resolution while keeping the stochastic-spatial particle-based resolution level for the species with low copy numbers. To this end, we introduce a simple particle-based model for the binding dynamics of ions and vesicles at the heart of the neurotransmission process. Within this framework, we derive a novel hybrid model and present results from numerical experiments which demonstrate that the hybrid model allows for an accurate approximation of the full particle-based model in realistic scenarios. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mbs.2024.109143 VL - 369 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Niemann, Jan-Hendrik A1 - Klus, Stefan A1 - Conrad, Natasa Djurdjevac A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Koopman-Based Surrogate Models for Multi-Objective Optimization of Agent-Based Systems JF - Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena N2 - Agent-based models (ABMs) provide an intuitive and powerful framework for studying social dynamics by modeling the interactions of individuals from the perspective of each individual. In addition to simulating and forecasting the dynamics of ABMs, the demand to solve optimization problems to support, for example, decision-making processes naturally arises. Most ABMs, however, are non-deterministic, high-dimensional dynamical systems, so objectives defined in terms of their behavior are computationally expensive. In particular, if the number of agents is large, evaluating the objective functions often becomes prohibitively time-consuming. We consider data-driven reduced models based on the Koopman generator to enable the efficient solution of multi-objective optimization problems involving ABMs. In a first step, we show how to obtain data-driven reduced models of non-deterministic dynamical systems (such as ABMs) that depend on potentially nonlinear control inputs. We then use them in the second step as surrogate models to solve multi-objective optimal control problems. We first illustrate our approach using the example of a voter model, where we compute optimal controls to steer the agents to a predetermined majority, and then using the example of an epidemic ABM, where we compute optimal containment strategies in a prototypical situation. We demonstrate that the surrogate models effectively approximate the Pareto-optimal points of the ABM dynamics by comparing the surrogate-based results with test points, where the objectives are evaluated using the ABM. Our results show that when objectives are defined by the dynamic behavior of ABMs, data-driven surrogate models support or even enable the solution of multi-objective optimization problems. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physd.2024.134052 VL - 460 SP - 134052 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Chemnitz, Robin A1 - Kostre, Margarita A1 - Schweigart, Fleur A1 - Fless, Friederike A1 - Schütte, Christof A1 - Ducke, Benjamin T1 - A Mathematical perspective on Romanisation: Modelling the Roman road activation process in ancient Tunisia JF - PLoS ONE N2 - Romanisation is a multi-faceted historical phenomenon with profound and lasting cultural impact on the ancient world. In the modern-day territory of Tunisia, this is particularly manifest during the first four centuries AD, under the reign of the Roman Empire. We derive a reduced, operational concept of Romanisation as a cultural diffusion process that is observable in the archaeological remains of the Roman era settlement system. We then introduce a novel mathematical model that computes spatio-temporal approximations for the Romanisation of the settlement system. The model is based on the concept of temporal road activation and makes minimal assumptions regarding input data quality. The results of our study contribute to the understanding of the time dynamics of the region’s road network, under the influence of Romanisation. Our model can be applied in similar archaeological research scenarios, to generate spatio-temporal backbones for the analysis of otherwise intractably complex social processes. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309752 VL - 19 IS - 9 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Chaukair, Mustafa A1 - Schütte, Christof A1 - Sunkara, Vikram T1 - On the Activation Space of ReLU Equipped Deep Neural Networks T2 - Procedia Computer Science N2 - Modern Deep Neural Networks are getting wider and deeper in their architecture design. However, with an increasing number of parameters the decision mechanisms becomes more opaque. Therefore, there is a need for understanding the structures arising in the hidden layers of deep neural networks. In this work, we present a new mathematical framework for describing the canonical polyhedral decomposition in the input space, and in addition, we introduce the notions of collapsing- and preserving patches, pertinent to understanding the forward map and the activation space they induce. The activation space can be seen as the output of a layer and, in the particular case of ReLU activations, we prove that this output has the structure of a polyhedral complex. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2023.08.200 VL - 222 SP - 624 EP - 635 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Plock, Matthias A1 - Hammerschmidt, Martin A1 - Burger, Sven A1 - Schneider, Philipp-Immanuel A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Impact Study of Numerical Discretization Accuracy on Parameter Reconstructions and Model Parameter Distributions JF - Metrologia N2 - In optical nano metrology numerical models are used widely for parameter reconstructions. Using the Bayesian target vector optimization method we fit a finite element numerical model to a Grazing Incidence x-ray fluorescence data set in order to obtain the geometrical parameters of a nano structured line grating. Gaussian process, stochastic machine learning surrogate models, were trained during the reconstruction and afterwards sampled with a Markov chain Monte Carlo sampler to determine the distribution of the reconstructed model parameters. The numerical discretization parameters of the used finite element model impact the numerical discretization error of the forward model. We investigated the impact of the polynomial order of the finite element ansatz functions on the reconstructed parameters as well as on the model parameter distributions. We showed that such a convergence study allows to determine numerical parameters which allows for efficient and accurate reconstruction results. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1681-7575/ace4cd VL - 60 SP - 054001 ER -