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FedAvg-Based CTMC Hazard Model for Federated Bridge Deterioration Assessment

arXiv:2602.20194v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Bridge periodic inspection records contain sensitive information about public infrastructure, making cross-organizational data sharing impractical under existing data governance constraints. We propose a federated framework for estimating a Continuous-Time Markov Chain (CTMC) hazard model of bridge deterioration, enabling municipalities to collaboratively train a shared benchmark model without transferring raw inspection records. Each User holds local inspection data and trains a log-linear hazard model over three deterioration-direction transitions -- Good$\to$Minor, Good$\to$Severe, and Minor$\to$Severe -- with covariates for bridge age, coastline distance, and deck area. Local optimization is performed via mini-batch stochastic gradient descent on the CTMC log-likelihood, and only a 12-dimensional pseudo-gradient vector is uploaded to a central server per communication round. The server aggregates User updates using sample-weighted Fe

T
Takato Yasuno
· · 1 min read · 6 views

arXiv:2602.20194v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Bridge periodic inspection records contain sensitive information about public infrastructure, making cross-organizational data sharing impractical under existing data governance constraints. We propose a federated framework for estimating a Continuous-Time Markov Chain (CTMC) hazard model of bridge deterioration, enabling municipalities to collaboratively train a shared benchmark model without transferring raw inspection records. Each User holds local inspection data and trains a log-linear hazard model over three deterioration-direction transitions -- Good$\to$Minor, Good$\to$Severe, and Minor$\to$Severe -- with covariates for bridge age, coastline distance, and deck area. Local optimization is performed via mini-batch stochastic gradient descent on the CTMC log-likelihood, and only a 12-dimensional pseudo-gradient vector is uploaded to a central server per communication round. The server aggregates User updates using sample-weighted Federated Averaging (FedAvg) with momentum and gradient clipping. All experiments in this paper are conducted on fully synthetic data generated from a known ground-truth parameter set with region-specific heterogeneity, enabling controlled evaluation of federated convergence behaviour. Simulation results across heterogeneous Users show consistent convergence of the average negative log-likelihood, with the aggregated gradient norm decreasing as User scale increases. Furthermore, the federated update mechanism provides a natural participation incentive: Users who register their local inspection datasets on a shared technical-standard platform receive in return the periodically updated global benchmark parameters -- information that cannot be obtained from local data alone -- thereby enabling evidence-based life-cycle planning without surrendering data sovereignty.

Executive Summary

This article proposes a federated framework for estimating a Continuous-Time Markov Chain (CTMC) hazard model of bridge deterioration, enabling municipalities to collaboratively train a shared benchmark model without transferring raw inspection records. The framework uses FedAvg with momentum and gradient clipping to aggregate local updates from users, providing a natural participation incentive and enabling evidence-based life-cycle planning without surrendering data sovereignty.

Key Points

  • Federated framework for bridge deterioration assessment
  • Use of Continuous-Time Markov Chain (CTMC) hazard model
  • FedAvg with momentum and gradient clipping for aggregation

Merits

Data Privacy

The proposed framework preserves data privacy by not requiring the transfer of raw inspection records, addressing a significant concern in cross-organizational data sharing.

Scalability

The use of FedAvg with momentum and gradient clipping enables the framework to scale to a large number of users, making it practical for real-world applications.

Demerits

Assumption of Synthetic Data

The article's reliance on fully synthetic data generated from a known ground-truth parameter set may limit the generalizability of the results to real-world scenarios.

Lack of Real-World Evaluation

The absence of real-world evaluation and validation of the proposed framework may raise concerns about its practical effectiveness.

Expert Commentary

The article presents a compelling solution to the challenges of cross-organizational data sharing in infrastructure management. By leveraging federated learning and CTMC hazard models, the proposed framework addresses concerns around data privacy and scalability. However, further research is needed to validate the framework's effectiveness in real-world scenarios and to explore its potential applications in other domains. The use of synthetic data, while useful for controlled evaluation, may not fully capture the complexities of real-world data, and therefore, real-world evaluation and validation are essential to demonstrate the framework's practical utility.

Recommendations

  • Conduct real-world evaluation and validation of the proposed framework to demonstrate its practical effectiveness
  • Explore the application of the framework to other infrastructure management scenarios, such as road or building maintenance

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