alnn_rewrite/analysis/ANALYSES_OVERVIEW.md

Analysis Overview

This document summarizes what each analysis in this folder does and what it produces.

Runtime Defaults

• Analysis defaults are centralized in analysis/defaults.py.
• The orchestrator CLI in analysis/evaluate_models.py is intentionally minimal and focuses on operational controls (--backend, --run-name, --skip-noise).
• Threshold grids, uncertainty percentile grids, noise-factor grids, calibration bins, class index, decision threshold, and bayesian MC passes are sourced from analysis/defaults.py.

Shared Utilities

• Shared loader/split logic is centralized in analysis/data_pipeline.py.
• All plotting code is centralized in analysis/plotting.py for easier inspection and maintenance.

1. Performance Threshold Sweep

• Purpose: Measure classification performance as decision threshold changes.
• Inputs: Ground-truth labels and predicted probabilities.
• Method: Evaluate metrics across an evenly spaced threshold grid.
• Main outputs:
  • performance_threshold_sweep.csv
  • plots/performance_threshold_sweep.png

2. Uncertainty Cutoff (Raw-Value)

• Purpose: Evaluate performance on subsets with uncertainty below percentile-derived cutoff values.
• Inputs: Uncertainty arrays (confidence-derived uncertainty and backend-specific uncertainty).
• Method:
  • Build evenly spaced percentile points.
  • Convert each percentile to a raw uncertainty cutoff value.
  • Keep samples where uncertainty is less than or equal to that cutoff.
  • Compute accuracy and F1 for each retained subset.
• Main outputs:
  • performance_uncertainty_cutoff.csv
  • plots/performance_uncertainty_cutoff.png

3. Uncertainty Cutoff (Percentile-Ranked)

• Purpose: Evaluate performance from all samples toward only the lowest-uncertainty samples.
• Inputs: Same uncertainty arrays as above.
• Method:
  • Use an evenly spaced percentile grid.
  • Keep samples where uncertainty is less than or equal to the selected percentile cutoff.
  • Plot from least restricted on the left (all samples) to most restricted on the right (lowest-uncertainty subset only).
• Main outputs:
  • performance_uncertainty_percentile_cutoff.csv
  • plots/performance_uncertainty_percentile_cutoff.png

4. Calibration Analysis

• Purpose: Quantify probability calibration quality.
• Inputs: Ground-truth labels and predicted probabilities.
• Method:
  • Reliability binning with configurable bin count.
  • Compute ECE, MCE, and Brier score.
• Main outputs:
  • calibration_bins.csv
  • plots/calibration_reliability.png

5. Physician Confidence Comparison

• Purpose: Compare model uncertainty with physician confidence ratings.
• Inputs: Evaluation outputs plus clinical table (Image Data ID + physician confidence column).
• Method:
  • Merge by image ID.
  • Group metrics by physician confidence level.
  • Plot distributions per rating group.
• Main outputs include grouped summary CSV files and boxplots for confidence and secondary uncertainty metrics.

6. Longitudinal Stability Analysis

• Purpose: Examine uncertainty patterns across stable and transitioning patient trajectories.
• Inputs: Evaluation outputs and clinical timeline information.
• Method:
  • Build patient-level trajectories.
  • Group by clinical cohort dynamics.
  • Compare uncertainty summaries across cohorts.
• Main outputs include patient/cohort summary CSV files and cohort uncertainty plots.

7. Noise Sensitivity Analysis

• Purpose: Test robustness and uncertainty behavior under synthetic Gaussian noise.
• Inputs: Holdout data loader, model backend, noise factor schedule, threshold, calibration bins.
• Method:
  • Use an evenly spaced noise factor schedule.
  • Add Gaussian noise scaled by a fixed intensity-range factor.
  • Recompute performance and calibration at each sigma.
  • Save visual examples of noised images.
• Main outputs:
  • noise_sensitivity.csv
  • plots/noise_sensitivity.png
  • plots/noise_uncertainty.png
  • plots/noise_confidence_certainty.png
  • plots/noise_examples/*_noise_examples.png

Plot Report

• Each backend output now includes plots_report.md.
• The report embeds all generated plot images and includes a short description per plot.

Notes on Even Spacing

The pipeline uses evenly spaced grids for sampled x-axis points in threshold and uncertainty-cutoff performance plots, and for the sigma schedule used by noise sensitivity plots.