Recursive Computation of Path Homology for Stratified Digraphs

Stratified digraphs are popular models for feedforward neural networks. However, computation of their path homologies has been limited to low dimensions due to high computational complexity. A recursive algorithm is proposed to compute certain high-dimensional (reduced) path homologies of stratified digraphs. By recursion on matrix representations of homologies of subgraphs, the algorithm efficiently computes the full-depth path homology of a stratified digraph, i.e. homology with dimension equal to the depth of the graph. The algorithm can be used to compute full-depth persistent homologies and for acyclic digraphs, the maximal path homology, i.e., path homology with dimension equal to the maximum path length of a graph. Numerical experiments show that the algorithm has a significant advantage over the general algorithm in computation time as the depth of stratified digraph increases.