# Autoencoders

Here we are trying to make a `model` to learn an **identity** function without
making it learn the **actual identity function**

$$
h_{\theta} (x) \approx x
$$

Now, if we were just to do this, it would be very simple, just pass
the `input` directly to `output`.

The innovation comes from the fact that we can ***compress*** `data` by using
an `NN` that has **less `neurons` per layer than `input` dimension**, or have
**less `connections` (sparse)**

![autoencoder image](./pngs/autoencoder.png)

## Compression

In a very simple fashion, we train a network to compress $\vec{x}$ in a more **dense**
vector $\vec{y}$ and then later **expand** it into $\vec{z}$, also called
**prediction** of $\vec{x}$

$$
\begin{aligned}
    \vec{x} &= [a, b]^{d_x} \\
    \vec{y} &= g(\vec{W_{0}}\vec{x} + b_{0}) \rightarrow \vec{y} = [a_1, b_1]^{d_y} \\
    \vec{z} &= g(\vec{W_{1}}\vec{y} + b_{1}) \rightarrow \vec{z} = [a, b]^{d_x} \\
    \vec{z} &\approx \vec{x}
\end{aligned}
$$

## Sparse Training

A sparse hidden representation comes by penalizing values assigned to `neurons`
(weights).

$$
\min_{\theta}
\underbrace{||h_{\theta}(x) - x ||^{2}}_{\text{
    Reconstruction Error
}} +
\underbrace{\lambda \sum_{i}|a_i|}_{\text{
    L1 sparsity
}}
$$

The reason on why we want **sparsity** is that we want the **best** representation
in the `latent space`, thus we want to **avoid** our `network` to **learn the
identity mapping**

## Layerwise Training

To train an `autoencoder` we train `layer` by `layer`,
minimizing the `vanishing gradients` problem.

The trick is to train one `layer`, then use it as the input for the other `layer`
and training over it as if it were our $x$. Rinse and repeat for 3 `layers` approximately.

If you want, **at last**, you can put another `layer` that you train over `data` to
**fine tune**

> [!TIP]
> This method works because even though the gradient vanishes, since we **already** trained
> our upper layers, they **already** have working weights

<!-- TODO: See Deep Belief Networks and Deep Boltzmann Machines-->
<!-- TODO: See Deep autoencoders training-->

## U-Net

It was developed to analyze medical images and segmentation, step in which we
add classification to pixels. To train these segmentation models we use **target maps**
that have the desired classification maps.

![u-net picture](./pngs/u-net.png)

> [!TIP]
> During a `skip-connection`, if the dimension resulting from the `upsampling` is smaller,
> it is possible to **crop** and then concatenate.

### Architecture

- **Encoder**:\
    We have several convolutional and pooling layers to make the representation smaller.
    Once small enough, we'll have a `FCNN`
- **Decoder**:\
    In this phase we restore the representation to the original dimension (`up-sampling`).
    Here we have many **deconvolution** layers, however these are learnt functions
- **Skip Connection**:\
    These are connections used to tell **deconvolutional** layers where the feature
    came from. Basically we concatenate a previous convolutional block with the
    convoluted one and we make a convolution of these layers.

### Pseudo Algorithm

```python

IMAGE = [[...]]

skip_stack = []
result = IMAGE[:]

# Encode 4 times
for _ in range(4):

    # Convolve 2 times
    for _ in range(2):
        result = conv(result)

    # Downsample
    skip_stack.append(result[:])
    result = max_pool(result)

# Middle convolution
for _ in range(2):
    result = conv(result)

# Decode 4 times
for _ in range(4):

    # Upsample
    result = upsample(result)

    # Skip Connection
    skip_connection = skip_stack.pop()
    result = concat(skip_connection, result)

    # Convolve 2 times
    for _ in range(2):
        result = conv(result)

# Last convolution
RESULT = conv(result)

```

<!-- TODO: See PDF anelli 10 to see complete architecture -->

## Variational Autoencoders

Until now we were reconstructing points in the latent space to points in the
**target space**.

However, these means that the **immediate neighbours of the data point** are
**meaningless**.

The idea is to make it such that all **immediate neighbour regions of our data point**
will be decoded as our **data point**.

To achieve this, our **point** will become a **distribution** over the `latent-space`
and then we'll sample from there and decode the point. We then operate as normally by
backpropagating the error.

![vae picture](./pngs/vae.png)

### Regularization Term

We use `Kullback-Leibler` to see the difference in distributions. This has a
**closed form** in terms of **mean** and **covariance matrices**

The importance of regularization makes it so that these encoders are both continuous and
complete (each point is meaningful). Without it we would have too similar results in our
regions. Also this makes it so that we don't have regions ***too concentrated and
similar to a point, nor too far apart from each other***

### Loss

$$
L(x) = ||x - \hat{x}||^{2}_{2} + KL[N(\mu_{x}, \Sigma_{x}), N(0, 1)]
$$

> [!TIP]
> The reason behind `KL` as a regularization term is that we **don't want our encoder
> to cheat by mapping different inputs in a specific region of the latent space**.
>
> This regularization makes it so that all points are mapped to a gaussian over the latent space
>
> On a side note, `KL` is not the only regularization term available, but is the most common.

### Probabilistic View

- $\mathcal{X}$: Set of our data
- $\mathcal{Y}$: Latent variable set
- $p(x|y)$: Probabilistic encoder, tells us the distribution of $x$ given $y$
- $p(y|x)$: Probabilistic decoder, tells us the distribution of $y$ given $x$

> [!NOTE]
> Bayesian a Posteriori Probability
> $$
>   \underbrace{p(A|B)}_{\text{Posterior}} = \frac{
>       \overbrace{p(B|A)}^{\text{Likelihood}}
>       \overbrace{\cdot p(A)}^{\text{Prior}}
>   }{
>       \underbrace{p(B)}_{\text{Marginalization}}
>   }
>   = \frac{p(B|A) \cdot p(A)}{\int{p(B|u)p(u)du}}
> $$
>
>   - **Posterior**: Probability of A being true given B
>   - **Likelihood**: Probability of B being true
given A
>   - **Prior**: Probability of A being true (knowledge)
>   - **Marginalization**: Probability of B being true

By making the assumption of the probability of
$y$ of being a gaussian with 0 mean and identity
deviation, and assuming $x$ and $y$ independent
and identically distributed:

- $p(y) = \mathcal{N}(0, I) \rightarrow p(x|y) = \mathcal{N}(f(y), cI)$

Since we need an integral over the denominator, we use
**approximate techniques** such as **Variational Inference**, easier to compute.

### Variational Inference

This approach tries to approximate the **goal distribution with one that is very close**.

Let's find $p(z|x)$, **probability of having that latent vector given the input**, by using
a gaussian distribution $q_x(z)$, **defined by 2 functions dependent from $x$**

$$
q_x(z) = \mathcal{N}(g(x), h(x))
$$

These functions, $g(x)$ and $h(x)$ are part of these function families $g(x) \in G$
and $h(x) \in H$. Now our final target is then to find the optimal $g$ and $h$ over these
sets, and this is why we add the `KL` divergence over the loss:

$$
L(x) = ||x - \hat{x}||^{2}_{2} + KL\left[N(q_x(z), \mathcal{N}(0, 1)\right]
$$

### Reparametrization Trick

Since $y$ ($\hat{x}$) is **technically sampled**, this makes it impossible
to backpropagate the `mean` and `std-dev`, thus we add another
variable, sampled from a *standard gaussian* $\zeta$, so that
we have

$$
y = \sigma_x \cdot \zeta + \mu_x
$$

For $\zeta$ we don't need any backpropagation, thus we can easily backpropagate for both `mean`
and `std-dev`