Efficient semidefinite bounds for multi-label discrete graphical models

Abstract: By concisely representing a joint function of many variables as the combination of small functions, discrete graphical models (GMs) provide a powerful framework to analyze stochastic and deterministic systems of interacting variables. One of the main queries on such models is to identify the extremum of this joint function. This is known as the Weighted Constraint Satisfaction Problem (WCSP) on deterministic Cost Function Networks and as Maximum a Posteriori (MAP) inference on stochastic Markov Random Fields. Algorithms for approximate WCSP inference typically rely on local consistency algorithms or belief propagation. These methods are intimately related to linear programming (LP) relaxations and often coupled with reparametrizations defined by the dual solution of the associated LP. Since the seminal work of Goemans and Williamson, it is well understood that convex SDP relaxations can provide superior guarantees to LP. But the inherent computational cost of interior point methods has limited their application. The situation has improved with the introduction of non-convex Burer-Monteiro style methods which are well suited to handle the SDP relaxation of combinatorial problems with binary variables (such as MAXCUT, MaxSAT or MAP/Ising). We compute low rank SDP upper and lower bounds for discrete pairwise graphical models with arbitrary number of values and arbitrary binary cost functions by extending a Burer-Monteiro style method based on row-by-row updates. We consider a traditional dualized constraint approach and a dedicated Block Coordinate Descent approach which avoids introducing large penalty coefficients to the formulation. On increasingly hard and dense WCSP/CFN instances, we observe that the BCD approach can outperform the dualized approach and provide tighter bounds than local consistencies/convergent message passing approaches.