fggs: Factor Graph Grammars in Python

Factor graph grammars (FGGs) are hyperedge replacement graph grammars for factor graphs. They generate sets of factor graphs and can describe a more general class of models than plate notation and many other formalisms can. Moreover, inference can be done on FGGs without enumerating all the generated factor graphs.

This library implements FGGs in Python and is compatible with PyTorch (tested with Python >= 3.7 and PyTorch >= 3.8).

FGGs are described in the following paper:

David Chiang and Darcey Riley. Factor graph grammars. In Proc. NeurIPS. 2020.

This code is written by David Chiang, Darcey Riley, and Ken Sible, at the University of Notre Dame, and is licensed under the MIT License.

Installing

Run pip install fggs.

Using

See examples/parser/parser.py for an example of using the package to train a simple FGG.

Creating an FGG

The FGG paper has an example of an FGG for a hidden Markov Model:

To reproduce this example, first create the FGG object, with start symbol S:

fgg = fggs.FGG('S')

Next, we create an empty right-hand side for rule π₁:

rhs = fggs.Graph()

Create a node labeled 'T' and call it v1:

v1 = rhs.new_node('T')

Create a terminal edge labeled 'is_bos' and a nonterminal edge labeled 'X':

rhs.new_edge('is_bos', [v1], is_terminal=True)
rhs.new_edge('X', [v1], is_nonterminal=True)

Finally, create the rule with left-hand side 'S' and rhs rhs:

fgg.new_rule('S', rhs)

Similarly for rules π₂ and π₃. The only thing new about these rules is that their right-hand sides have external nodes, which need to be set.

rhs = fggs.Graph()
v1, v2, v3 = rhs.new_node('T'), rhs.new_node('T'), rhs.new_node('W')
rhs.new_edge('transition', [v1, v2], is_terminal=True)
rhs.new_edge('observation', [v2, v3], is_terminal=True)
rhs.new_edge('X', [v2], is_nonterminal=True)
rhs.ext = [v1]
fgg.new_rule('X', rhs)

rhs = fggs.Graph()
v1, v2 = rhs.new_node('T'), rhs.new_node('T')
rhs.new_edge('transition', [v1, v2], is_terminal=True)
rhs.new_edge('is_eos', [v2], is_terminal=True)
rhs.ext = [v1]
fgg.new_rule('X', rhs)

The last step is to create the domains and factors. For the domains, we list out the possible values:

fgg.new_finite_domain('T', ['BOS', 'EOS', 'IN', 'NNS', 'VBP'])
fgg.new_finite_domain('W', ['cats', 'chase', 'dogs', 'that'])

And for the factors, we provide weight tensors:

fgg.new_finite_factor('is_bos', torch.tensor([1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0]))
fgg.new_finite_factor('is_eos', torch.tensor([0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0]))
fgg.new_finite_factor('transition',
    torch.tensor([
        [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0], # BOS
        [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0], # EOS
        [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0], # IN
        [0.0, 0.5, 0.5, 0.0, 0.0], # NNS
        [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0], # VBP
    ])
)
fgg.new_finite_factor('observation',
    torch.tensor([
        [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0], # BOS
        [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0], # EOS
        [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0], # IN
        [0.5, 0.0, 0.5, 0.0], # NNS
        [0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0], # VBP
    ])
)

Use fgg_to_json(fgg) to convert FGG fgg to an object writable by json.dump, and json_to_fgg(json) to convert an object read by json.load to an FGG.

Factorization

The function fggs.factorize_fgg(fgg) factorizes an FGG's rules into possibly smaller rules, making sum-product computations more efficient. This function takes an optional argument:

• method
  • "min_fill": fast approximate method (default)
  • "quickbb": partial implementation of Gogate and Richter's QuickBB
  • "acb": slow exact method of Arborg, Corneil, and Proskurowski

Sum-products

The function fggs.sum_product(fgg, **opts) computes the sum-product of an FGG with finite domains and factors. It has a lot of options:

• method

  • "fixed-point": fixed-point iteration (default)
  • "linear": linear solver (raises exception if FGG is not linear)
  • "newton": Newton's method

• semiring

  • fggs.RealSemiring(): real semiring (default)
  • fggs.LogSemiring(): log semiring
  • fggs.ViterbiSemiring(): max-plus semiring
  • fggs.BoolSemiring(): Boolean semiring
  • Each of the above can take a dtype and/or device argument.

• iterative methods stop when all elements change by less than tol (default 1e-5), or after kmax iterations (default 1000), whichever comes first.

The return value of fggs.sum_product is a tensor. If the start nonterminal has no external nodes (as in the original paper), the tensor is a scalar. It's also allowed for the start nonterminal to have k > 0 external nodes, so that the tensor has order k.

The ViterbiSemiring gives the log-weight of the highest-weight derivation. To get the derivation itself, use fggs.viterbi(fgg, asst, **opts), where asst is an assignment to the start nonterminal.

derivation = fggs.viterbi(fgg, ())
factorgraph = derivation.derive()