Do Sheaf Neural Networks Use Holonomy? A Measure--Intervene--Control Study
Ankit GroverR\'emi Bourgerie
Oct 2026
Machine Learning
Abstract
Geometric architectures are often motivated by internal mechanisms, but accuracy alone does not show whether predictions use them. In Sheaf Neural Networks (SNNs), edge transports form a connection whose cycle products define holonomy. We ask whether training changes triangle holonomy, whether predictions rely on the learned connection, and whether holonomy drives triangle counting. We use basis-independent loop readouts with identity interventions and shortcut controls. On high-homophily GraphUniverse graphs, triangle counting increases the mean SO(2) triangle rotation in Neural Sheaf Propagation (NSP) from 0.010 to 0.388 radians, while community detection ends at 0.029 radians. With more data, learned SO(2)--NSP outperforms Identity NSP, and replacing its transports after training increases error further. However, ridge regression is more accurate, diagonal maps improve without continuous rotation, and fixed-degree models develop rotation without improved counting. Thus, NSP can learn and rely on a nontrivial connection, but our experiments do not show that triangle holonomy drives its predictions.
This paper investigates developing real-world perception for active agents, proposes Gibson Environment for this purpose, and showcases a set of perceptual tasks learned therein.
F. Xia, Amir Zamir, Zhi-Yang He et al.· 2018 IEEE/CVF Conference on...· 1,069 citations· ⚡112
The results indicate that software engineering work practices are chosen opportunistically, adapted and configured to provide value under the constrains imposed by the startup context.
Nicolò Paternoster, Carmine Giardino, M. Unterkalmsteiner et al.· Information and Software Tec...· 394 citations· ⚡54
The possibility of inferring high-dimensional data inference in a model that consists of a prior and an auxiliary differentiable constraint given some additional information is considered, thereby allowing a range of potential applications in adapting models to new domains and tasks.
Alexandros Graikos, Esmeralda S. Whitammer, N. Jojic et al.· Neural Information Processin...· 316 citations· ⚡15
It is proved that any global minimizer of the trajectory balance objective can define a policy that samples exactly from the target distribution, and empirically demonstrate the benefits of the trajectories balance objective for GFlowNet convergence, diversity of generated samples, and robustness to long action sequenc...
Esmeralda S. Whitammer, Moksh Jain, Emmanuel Bengio et al.· Neural Information Processin...· 302 citations· ⚡60
An algorithm is proposed which leverages disentangled semantic factors to generate adversarial perturbation by altering controlled semantic attributes to fool the learner towards various "adversarial" targets.
Haonan Qiu, Chaowei Xiao, Lei Yang et al.· arXiv.org· 208 citations· ⚡17
This work proposes a HALO that directly maximizes the utility of generations instead of maximizing the log-likelihood of preferences, and suggests that the best loss depends on the inductive biases most appropriate for a given setting, an oft-overlooked consideration.
A machine-learning approach called CheMeleon provides a practical way to develop new drugs or other molecules with much less detailed, expensive experimentation.
