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23 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2010

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Computationally efficient algorithms for statistical image processing: Implementation in R

Langovoy, M., Wittich, O.

(2010-053), EURANDOM, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, December 2010 (techreport)

Abstract
In the series of our earlier papers on the subject, we proposed a novel statistical hy- pothesis testing method for detection of objects in noisy images. The method uses results from percolation theory and random graph theory. We developed algorithms that allowed to detect objects of unknown shapes in the presence of nonparametric noise of unknown level and of un- known distribution. No boundary shape constraints were imposed on the objects, only a weak bulk condition for the object's interior was required. Our algorithms have linear complexity and exponential accuracy. In the present paper, we describe an implementation of our nonparametric hypothesis testing method. We provide a program that can be used for statistical experiments in image processing. This program is written in the statistical programming language R.

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2010

Langovoy, M., Wittich, O. Computationally efficient algorithms for statistical image processing: Implementation in R (2010-053), EURANDOM, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, December 2010 (techreport)

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Fast Convergent Algorithms for Expectation Propagation Approximate Bayesian Inference

Seeger, M., Nickisch, H.

Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, December 2010 (techreport)

Abstract
We propose a novel algorithm to solve the expectation propagation relaxation of Bayesian inference for continuous-variable graphical models. In contrast to most previous algorithms, our method is provably convergent. By marrying convergent EP ideas from (Opper&Winther 05) with covariance decoupling techniques (Wipf&Nagarajan 08, Nickisch&Seeger 09), it runs at least an order of magnitude faster than the most commonly used EP solver.

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Seeger, M., Nickisch, H. Fast Convergent Algorithms for Expectation Propagation Approximate Bayesian Inference Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, December 2010 (techreport)

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A PAC-Bayesian Analysis of Graph Clustering and Pairwise Clustering

Seldin, Y.

Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, September 2010 (techreport)

Abstract
We formulate weighted graph clustering as a prediction problem: given a subset of edge weights we analyze the ability of graph clustering to predict the remaining edge weights. This formulation enables practical and theoretical comparison of different approaches to graph clustering as well as comparison of graph clustering with other possible ways to model the graph. We adapt the PAC-Bayesian analysis of co-clustering (Seldin and Tishby, 2008; Seldin, 2009) to derive a PAC-Bayesian generalization bound for graph clustering. The bound shows that graph clustering should optimize a trade-off between empirical data fit and the mutual information that clusters preserve on the graph nodes. A similar trade-off derived from information-theoretic considerations was already shown to produce state-of-the-art results in practice (Slonim et al., 2005; Yom-Tov and Slonim, 2009). This paper supports the empirical evidence by providing a better theoretical foundation, suggesting formal generalization guarantees, and offering a more accurate way to deal with finite sample issues. We derive a bound minimization algorithm and show that it provides good results in real-life problems and that the derived PAC-Bayesian bound is reasonably tight.

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Seldin, Y. A PAC-Bayesian Analysis of Graph Clustering and Pairwise Clustering Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, September 2010 (techreport)

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Sparse nonnegative matrix approximation: new formulations and algorithms

Tandon, R., Sra, S.

(193), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, September 2010 (techreport)

Abstract
We introduce several new formulations for sparse nonnegative matrix approximation. Subsequently, we solve these formulations by developing generic algorithms. Further, to help selecting a particular sparse formulation, we briefly discuss the interpretation of each formulation. Finally, preliminary experiments are presented to illustrate the behavior of our formulations and algorithms.

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Tandon, R., Sra, S. Sparse nonnegative matrix approximation: new formulations and algorithms (193), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, September 2010 (techreport)

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Robust nonparametric detection of objects in noisy images

Langovoy, M., Wittich, O.

(2010-049), EURANDOM, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, September 2010 (techreport)

Abstract
We propose a novel statistical hypothesis testing method for detection of objects in noisy images. The method uses results from percolation theory and random graph theory. We present an algorithm that allows to detect objects of unknown shapes in the presence of nonparametric noise of unknown level and of unknown distribution. No boundary shape constraints are imposed on the object, only a weak bulk condition for the object's interior is required. The algorithm has linear complexity and exponential accuracy and is appropriate for real-time systems. In this paper, we develop further the mathematical formalism of our method and explore im- portant connections to the mathematical theory of percolation and statistical physics. We prove results on consistency and algorithmic complexity of our testing procedure. In addition, we address not only an asymptotic behavior of the method, but also a nite sample performance of our test.

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Langovoy, M., Wittich, O. Robust nonparametric detection of objects in noisy images (2010-049), EURANDOM, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, September 2010 (techreport)

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Large Scale Variational Inference and Experimental Design for Sparse Generalized Linear Models

Seeger, M., Nickisch, H.

Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, August 2010 (techreport)

Abstract
Many problems of low-level computer vision and image processing, such as denoising, deconvolution, tomographic reconstruction or super-resolution, can be addressed by maximizing the posterior distribution of a sparse linear model (SLM). We show how higher-order Bayesian decision-making problems, such as optimizing image acquisition in magnetic resonance scanners, can be addressed by querying the SLM posterior covariance, unrelated to the density's mode. We propose a scalable algorithmic framework, with which SLM posteriors over full, high-resolution images can be approximated for the first time, solving a variational optimization problem which is convex iff posterior mode finding is convex. These methods successfully drive the optimization of sampling trajectories for real-world magnetic resonance imaging through Bayesian experimental design, which has not been attempted before. Our methodology provides new insight into similarities and differences between sparse reconstruction and approximate Bayesian inference, and has important implications for compressive sensing of real-world images.

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Cooperative Cuts for Image Segmentation

Jegelka, S., Bilmes, J.

(UWEETR-1020-0003), University of Washington, Washington DC, USA, August 2010 (techreport)

Abstract
We propose a novel framework for graph-based cooperative regularization that uses submodular costs on graph edges. We introduce an efficient iterative algorithm to solve the resulting hard discrete optimization problem, and show that it has a guaranteed approximation factor. The edge-submodular formulation is amenable to the same extensions as standard graph cut approaches, and applicable to a range of problems. We apply this method to the image segmentation problem. Specifically, Here, we apply it to introduce a discount for homogeneous boundaries in binary image segmentation on very difficult images, precisely, long thin objects and color and grayscale images with a shading gradient. The experiments show that significant portions of previously truncated objects are now preserved.

Web [BibTex]

Jegelka, S., Bilmes, J. Cooperative Cuts for Image Segmentation (UWEETR-1020-0003), University of Washington, Washington DC, USA, August 2010 (techreport)

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Fast algorithms for total-variationbased optimization

Barbero, A., Sra, S.

(194), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, August 2010 (techreport)

Abstract
We derive a number of methods to solve efficiently simple optimization problems subject to a totalvariation (TV) regularization, under different norms of the TV operator and both for the case of 1-dimensional and 2-dimensional data. In spite of the non-smooth, non-separable nature of the TV terms considered, we show that a dual formulation with strong structure can be derived. Taking advantage of this structure we develop adaptions of existing algorithms from the optimization literature, resulting in efficient methods for the problem at hand. Experimental results show that for 1-dimensional data the proposed methods achieve convergence within good accuracy levels in practically linear time, both for L1 and L2 norms. For the more challenging 2-dimensional case a performance of order O(N2 log2 N) for N x N inputs is achieved when using the L2 norm. A final section suggests possible extensions and lines of further work.

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Barbero, A., Sra, S. Fast algorithms for total-variationbased optimization (194), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, August 2010 (techreport)

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Gaussian Mixture Modeling with Gaussian Process Latent Variable Models

Nickisch, H., Rasmussen, C.

Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, June 2010 (techreport)

Abstract
Density modeling is notoriously difficult for high dimensional data. One approach to the problem is to search for a lower dimensional manifold which captures the main characteristics of the data. Recently, the Gaussian Process Latent Variable Model (GPLVM) has successfully been used to find low dimensional manifolds in a variety of complex data. The GPLVM consists of a set of points in a low dimensional latent space, and a stochastic map to the observed space. We show how it can be interpreted as a density model in the observed space. However, the GPLVM is not trained as a density model and therefore yields bad density estimates. We propose a new training strategy and obtain improved generalisation performance and better density estimates in comparative evaluations on several benchmark data sets.

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Nickisch, H., Rasmussen, C. Gaussian Mixture Modeling with Gaussian Process Latent Variable Models Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, June 2010 (techreport)

Web [BibTex]

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Generalized Proximity and Projection with Norms and Mixed-norms

Sra, S.

(192), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, May 2010 (techreport)

Abstract
We discuss generalized proximity operators (GPO) and their associated generalized projection problems. On inputs of size n, we show how to efficiently apply GPOs and generalized projections for separable norms and distance-like functions to accuracy e in O(n log(1/e)) time. We also derive projection algorithms that run theoretically in O(n log n log(1/e)) time but can for suitable parameter ranges empirically outperform the O(n log(1/e)) projection method. The proximity and projection tasks are either separable, and solved directly, or are reduced to a single root-finding step. We highlight that as a byproduct, our analysis also yields an O(n log(1/e)) (weakly linear-time) procedure for Euclidean projections onto the l1;1-norm ball; previously only an O(n log n) method was known. We provide empirical evaluation to illustrate the performance of our methods, noting that for the l1;1-norm projection, our implementation is more than two orders of magnitude faster than the previously known method.

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Sra, S. Generalized Proximity and Projection with Norms and Mixed-norms (192), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, May 2010 (techreport)

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Cooperative Cuts: Graph Cuts with Submodular Edge Weights

Jegelka, S., Bilmes, J.

(189), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Germany, March 2010 (techreport)

Abstract
We introduce a problem we call Cooperative cut, where the goal is to find a minimum-cost graph cut but where a submodular function is used to define the cost of a subsets of edges. That means, the cost of an edge that is added to the current cut set C depends on the edges in C. This generalization of the cost in the standard min-cut problem to a submodular cost function immediately makes the problem harder. Not only do we prove NP hardness even for nonnegative submodular costs, but also show a lower bound of Omega(|V|^(1/3)) on the approximation factor for the problem. On the positive side, we propose and compare four approximation algorithms with an overall approximation factor of min { |V|/2, |C*|, O( sqrt(|E|) log |V|), |P_max|}, where C* is the optimal solution, and P_max is the longest s, t path across the cut between given s, t. We also introduce additional heuristics for the problem which have attractive properties from the perspective of practical applications and implementations in that existing fast min-cut libraries may be used as subroutines. Both our approximation algorithms, and our heuristics, appear to do well in practice.

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Jegelka, S., Bilmes, J. Cooperative Cuts: Graph Cuts with Submodular Edge Weights (189), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Germany, March 2010 (techreport)

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JMLR Workshop and Conference Proceedings: Volume 6

Guyon, I., Janzing, D., Schölkopf, B.

pages: 288, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, Causality: Objectives and Assessment (NIPS Workshop) , February 2010 (proceedings)

Web [BibTex]

Guyon, I., Janzing, D., Schölkopf, B. JMLR Workshop and Conference Proceedings: Volume 6 pages: 288, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, Causality: Objectives and Assessment (NIPS Workshop) , February 2010 (proceedings)

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Information-theoretic inference of common ancestors

Steudel, B., Ay, N.

Computing Research Repository (CoRR), abs/1010.5720, pages: 18, 2010 (techreport)

Web [BibTex]

Steudel, B., Ay, N. Information-theoretic inference of common ancestors Computing Research Repository (CoRR), abs/1010.5720, pages: 18, 2010 (techreport)

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2002

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Kernel Dependency Estimation

Weston, J., Chapelle, O., Elisseeff, A., Schölkopf, B., Vapnik, V.

(98), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, August 2002 (techreport)

Abstract
We consider the learning problem of finding a dependency between a general class of objects and another, possibly different, general class of objects. The objects can be for example: vectors, images, strings, trees or graphs. Such a task is made possible by employing similarity measures in both input and output spaces using kernel functions, thus embedding the objects into vector spaces. Output kernels also make it possible to encode prior information and/or invariances in the loss function in an elegant way. We experimentally validate our approach on several tasks: mapping strings to strings, pattern recognition, and reconstruction from partial images.

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2002

Weston, J., Chapelle, O., Elisseeff, A., Schölkopf, B., Vapnik, V. Kernel Dependency Estimation (98), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, August 2002 (techreport)

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Global Geometry of SVM Classifiers

Zhou, D., Xiao, B., Zhou, H., Dai, R.

Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, June 2002 (techreport)

Abstract
We construct an geometry framework for any norm Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers. Within this framework, separating hyperplanes, dual descriptions and solutions of SVM classifiers are constructed by a purely geometric fashion. In contrast with the optimization theory used in SVM classifiers, we have no complicated computations any more. Each step in our theory is guided by elegant geometric intuitions.

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Zhou, D., Xiao, B., Zhou, H., Dai, R. Global Geometry of SVM Classifiers Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, June 2002 (techreport)

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Computationally Efficient Face Detection

Romdhani, S., Torr, P., Schölkopf, B., Blake, A.

(MSR-TR-2002-69), Microsoft Research, June 2002 (techreport)

Web [BibTex]

Romdhani, S., Torr, P., Schölkopf, B., Blake, A. Computationally Efficient Face Detection (MSR-TR-2002-69), Microsoft Research, June 2002 (techreport)

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Kernel-based nonlinear blind source separation

Harmeling, S., Ziehe, A., Kawanabe, M., Müller, K.

EU-Project BLISS, January 2002 (techreport)

GZIP [BibTex]

Harmeling, S., Ziehe, A., Kawanabe, M., Müller, K. Kernel-based nonlinear blind source separation EU-Project BLISS, January 2002 (techreport)

GZIP [BibTex]

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A compression approach to support vector model selection

von Luxburg, U., Bousquet, O., Schölkopf, B.

(101), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 2002, see more detailed JMLR version (techreport)

Abstract
In this paper we investigate connections between statistical learning theory and data compression on the basis of support vector machine (SVM) model selection. Inspired by several generalization bounds we construct ``compression coefficients'' for SVMs, which measure the amount by which the training labels can be compressed by some classification hypothesis. The main idea is to relate the coding precision of this hypothesis to the width of the margin of the SVM. The compression coefficients connect well known quantities such as the radius-margin ratio R^2/rho^2, the eigenvalues of the kernel matrix and the number of support vectors. To test whether they are useful in practice we ran model selection experiments on several real world datasets. As a result we found that compression coefficients can fairly accurately predict the parameters for which the test error is minimized.

[BibTex]

von Luxburg, U., Bousquet, O., Schölkopf, B. A compression approach to support vector model selection (101), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 2002, see more detailed JMLR version (techreport)

[BibTex]

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Feature Selection and Transduction for Prediction of Molecular Bioactivity for Drug Design

Weston, J., Perez-Cruz, F., Bousquet, O., Chapelle, O., Elisseeff, A., Schölkopf, B.

Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics / Biowulf Technologies, 2002 (techreport)

Web [BibTex]

Weston, J., Perez-Cruz, F., Bousquet, O., Chapelle, O., Elisseeff, A., Schölkopf, B. Feature Selection and Transduction for Prediction of Molecular Bioactivity for Drug Design Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics / Biowulf Technologies, 2002 (techreport)

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Observations on the Nyström Method for Gaussian Process Prediction

Williams, C., Rasmussen, C., Schwaighofer, A., Tresp, V.

Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, 2002 (techreport)

Abstract
A number of methods for speeding up Gaussian Process (GP) prediction have been proposed, including the Nystr{\"o}m method of Williams and Seeger (2001). In this paper we focus on two issues (1) the relationship of the Nystr{\"o}m method to the Subset of Regressors method (Poggio and Girosi 1990; Luo and Wahba, 1997) and (2) understanding in what circumstances the Nystr{\"o}m approximation would be expected to provide a good approximation to exact GP regression.

PostScript [BibTex]

Williams, C., Rasmussen, C., Schwaighofer, A., Tresp, V. Observations on the Nyström Method for Gaussian Process Prediction Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, 2002 (techreport)

PostScript [BibTex]

2000

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The Kernel Trick for Distances

Schölkopf, B.

(MSR-TR-2000-51), Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, USA, 2000 (techreport)

Abstract
A method is described which, like the kernel trick in support vector machines (SVMs), lets us generalize distance-based algorithms to operate in feature spaces, usually nonlinearly related to the input space. This is done by identifying a class of kernels which can be represented as normbased distances in Hilbert spaces. It turns out that common kernel algorithms, such as SVMs and kernel PCA, are actually really distance based algorithms and can be run with that class of kernels, too. As well as providing a useful new insight into how these algorithms work, the present work can form the basis for conceiving new algorithms.

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2000

Schölkopf, B. The Kernel Trick for Distances (MSR-TR-2000-51), Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, USA, 2000 (techreport)

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Kernel method for percentile feature extraction

Schölkopf, B., Platt, J., Smola, A.

(MSR-TR-2000-22), Microsoft Research, 2000 (techreport)

Abstract
A method is proposed which computes a direction in a dataset such that a speci􏰘ed fraction of a particular class of all examples is separated from the overall mean by a maximal margin􏰤 The pro jector onto that direction can be used for class􏰣speci􏰘c feature extraction􏰤 The algorithm is carried out in a feature space associated with a support vector kernel function􏰢 hence it can be used to construct a large class of nonlinear fea􏰣 ture extractors􏰤 In the particular case where there exists only one class􏰢 the method can be thought of as a robust form of principal component analysis􏰢 where instead of variance we maximize percentile thresholds􏰤 Fi􏰣 nally􏰢 we generalize it to also include the possibility of specifying negative examples􏰤

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Schölkopf, B., Platt, J., Smola, A. Kernel method for percentile feature extraction (MSR-TR-2000-22), Microsoft Research, 2000 (techreport)

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1994

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View-based cognitive mapping and path planning

Schölkopf, B., Mallot, H.

(7), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics Tübingen, November 1994, This technical report has also been published elsewhere (techreport)

Abstract
We present a scheme for learning a cognitive map of a maze from a sequence of views and movement decisions. The scheme is based on an intermediate representation called the view graph. We show that this representation carries sufficient information to reconstruct the topological and directional structure of the maze. Moreover, we present a neural network that learns the view graph during a random exploration of the maze. We use a unsupervised competitive learning rule which translates temporal sequence (rather than similarity) of views into connectedness in the network. The network uses its knowledge of the topological and directional structure of the maze to generate expectations about which views are likely to be perceived next, improving the view recognition performance. We provide an additional mechanism which uses the map to find paths between arbitrary points of the previously explored environment. The results are compared to findings of behavioural neuroscience.

[BibTex]

1994

Schölkopf, B., Mallot, H. View-based cognitive mapping and path planning (7), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics Tübingen, November 1994, This technical report has also been published elsewhere (techreport)

[BibTex]