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27 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2011

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PAC-Bayesian Analysis of Martingales and Multiarmed Bandits

Seldin, Y., Laviolette, F., Shawe-Taylor, J., Peters, J., Auer, P.

Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, May 2011 (techreport)

Abstract
We present two alternative ways to apply PAC-Bayesian analysis to sequences of dependent random variables. The first is based on a new lemma that enables to bound expectations of convex functions of certain dependent random variables by expectations of the same functions of independent Bernoulli random variables. This lemma provides an alternative tool to Hoeffding-Azuma inequality to bound concentration of martingale values. Our second approach is based on integration of Hoeffding-Azuma inequality with PAC-Bayesian analysis. We also introduce a way to apply PAC-Bayesian analysis in situation of limited feedback. We combine the new tools to derive PAC-Bayesian generalization and regret bounds for the multiarmed bandit problem. Although our regret bound is not yet as tight as state-of-the-art regret bounds based on other well-established techniques, our results significantly expand the range of potential applications of PAC-Bayesian analysis and introduce a new analysis tool to reinforcement learning and many other fields, where martingales and limited feedback are encountered.

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2011

Seldin, Y., Laviolette, F., Shawe-Taylor, J., Peters, J., Auer, P. PAC-Bayesian Analysis of Martingales and Multiarmed Bandits Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, May 2011 (techreport)

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Non-stationary Correction of Optical Aberrations

Schuler, C., Hirsch, M., Harmeling, S., Schölkopf, B.

(1), Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen, Germany, May 2011 (techreport)

Abstract
Taking a sharp photo at several megapixel resolution traditionally relies on high grade lenses. In this paper, we present an approach to alleviate image degradations caused by imperfect optics. We rely on a calibration step to encode the optical aberrations in a space-variant point spread function and obtain a corrected image by non-stationary deconvolution. By including the Bayer array in our image formation model, we can perform demosaicing as part of the deconvolution.

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Schuler, C., Hirsch, M., Harmeling, S., Schölkopf, B. Non-stationary Correction of Optical Aberrations (1), Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen, Germany, May 2011 (techreport)

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Multiple Kernel Learning: A Unifying Probabilistic Viewpoint

Nickisch, H., Seeger, M.

Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, March 2011 (techreport)

Abstract
We present a probabilistic viewpoint to multiple kernel learning unifying well-known regularised risk approaches and recent advances in approximate Bayesian inference relaxations. The framework proposes a general objective function suitable for regression, robust regression and classification that is lower bound of the marginal likelihood and contains many regularised risk approaches as special cases. Furthermore, we derive an efficient and provably convergent optimisation algorithm.

Web [BibTex]

Nickisch, H., Seeger, M. Multiple Kernel Learning: A Unifying Probabilistic Viewpoint Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, March 2011 (techreport)

Web [BibTex]

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Multiple testing, uncertainty and realistic pictures

Langovoy, M., Wittich, O.

(2011-004), EURANDOM, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, January 2011 (techreport)

Abstract
We study statistical detection of grayscale objects in noisy images. The object of interest is of unknown shape and has an unknown intensity, that can be varying over the object and can be negative. No boundary shape constraints are imposed on the object, only a weak bulk condition for the object's interior is required. We propose an algorithm that can be used to detect grayscale objects of unknown shapes in the presence of nonparametric noise of unknown level. Our algorithm is based on a nonparametric multiple testing procedure. We establish the limit of applicability of our method via an explicit, closed-form, non-asymptotic and nonparametric consistency bound. This bound is valid for a wide class of nonparametric noise distributions. We achieve this by proving an uncertainty principle for percolation on nite lattices.

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Langovoy, M., Wittich, O. Multiple testing, uncertainty and realistic pictures (2011-004), EURANDOM, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, January 2011 (techreport)

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Nonconvex proximal splitting: batch and incremental algorithms

Sra, S.

(2), Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen, Germany, 2011 (techreport)

Abstract
Within the unmanageably large class of nonconvex optimization, we consider the rich subclass of nonsmooth problems having composite objectives (this includes the extensively studied convex, composite objective problems as a special case). For this subclass, we introduce a powerful, new framework that permits asymptotically non-vanishing perturbations. In particular, we develop perturbation-based batch and incremental (online like) nonconvex proximal splitting algorithms. To our knowledge, this is the rst time that such perturbation-based nonconvex splitting algorithms are being proposed and analyzed. While the main contribution of the paper is the theoretical framework, we complement our results by presenting some empirical results on matrix factorization.

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Sra, S. Nonconvex proximal splitting: batch and incremental algorithms (2), Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen, Germany, 2011 (techreport)

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2006

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A New Projected Quasi-Newton Approach for the Nonnegative Least Squares Problem

Kim, D., Sra, S., Dhillon, I.

(TR-06-54), Univ. of Texas, Austin, December 2006 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

2006

Kim, D., Sra, S., Dhillon, I. A New Projected Quasi-Newton Approach for the Nonnegative Least Squares Problem (TR-06-54), Univ. of Texas, Austin, December 2006 (techreport)

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Probabilistic inference for solving (PO)MDPs

Toussaint, M., Harmeling, S., Storkey, A.

(934), School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, December 2006 (techreport)

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Toussaint, M., Harmeling, S., Storkey, A. Probabilistic inference for solving (PO)MDPs (934), School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, December 2006 (techreport)

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Minimal Logical Constraint Covering Sets

Sinz, F., Schölkopf, B.

(155), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, December 2006 (techreport)

Abstract
We propose a general framework for computing minimal set covers under class of certain logical constraints. The underlying idea is to transform the problem into a mathematical programm under linear constraints. In this sense it can be seen as a natural extension of the vector quantization algorithm proposed by Tipping and Schoelkopf. We show which class of logical constraints can be cast and relaxed into linear constraints and give an algorithm for the transformation.

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Sinz, F., Schölkopf, B. Minimal Logical Constraint Covering Sets (155), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, December 2006 (techreport)

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New Methods for the P300 Visual Speller

Biessmann, F.

(1), (Editors: Hill, J. ), Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, November 2006 (techreport)

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Biessmann, F. New Methods for the P300 Visual Speller (1), (Editors: Hill, J. ), Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, November 2006 (techreport)

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Geometric Analysis of Hilbert Schmidt Independence criterion based ICA contrast function

Shen, H., Jegelka, S., Gretton, A.

(PA006080), National ICT Australia, Canberra, Australia, October 2006 (techreport)

Web [BibTex]

Shen, H., Jegelka, S., Gretton, A. Geometric Analysis of Hilbert Schmidt Independence criterion based ICA contrast function (PA006080), National ICT Australia, Canberra, Australia, October 2006 (techreport)

Web [BibTex]

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A tutorial on spectral clustering

von Luxburg, U.

(149), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, August 2006 (techreport)

Abstract
In recent years, spectral clustering has become one of the most popular modern clustering algorithms. It is simple to implement, can be solved efficiently by standard linear algebra software, and very often outperforms traditional clustering algorithms such as the k-means algorithm. Nevertheless, on the first glance spectral clustering looks a bit mysterious, and it is not obvious to see why it works at all and what it really does. This article is a tutorial introduction to spectral clustering. We describe different graph Laplacians and their basic properties, present the most common spectral clustering algorithms, and derive those algorithms from scratch by several different approaches. Advantages and disadvantages of the different spectral clustering algorithms are discussed.

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von Luxburg, U. A tutorial on spectral clustering (149), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, August 2006 (techreport)

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Towards the Inference of Graphs on Ordered Vertexes

Zien, A., Raetsch, G., Ong, C.

(150), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, August 2006 (techreport)

Abstract
We propose novel methods for machine learning of structured output spaces. Specifically, we consider outputs which are graphs with vertices that have a natural order. We consider the usual adjacency matrix representation of graphs, as well as two other representations for such a graph: (a) decomposing the graph into a set of paths, (b) converting the graph into a single sequence of nodes with labeled edges. For each of the three representations, we propose an encoding and decoding scheme. We also propose an evaluation measure for comparing two graphs.

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Zien, A., Raetsch, G., Ong, C. Towards the Inference of Graphs on Ordered Vertexes (150), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, August 2006 (techreport)

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Nonnegative Matrix Approximation: Algorithms and Applications

Sra, S., Dhillon, I.

Univ. of Texas, Austin, May 2006 (techreport)

[BibTex]

Sra, S., Dhillon, I. Nonnegative Matrix Approximation: Algorithms and Applications Univ. of Texas, Austin, May 2006 (techreport)

[BibTex]

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An Automated Combination of Sequence Motif Kernels for Predicting Protein Subcellular Localization

Zien, A., Ong, C.

(146), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, April 2006 (techreport)

Abstract
Protein subcellular localization is a crucial ingredient to many important inferences about cellular processes, including prediction of protein function and protein interactions. While many predictive computational tools have been proposed, they tend to have complicated architectures and require many design decisions from the developer. We propose an elegant and fully automated approach to building a prediction system for protein subcellular localization. We propose a new class of protein sequence kernels which considers all motifs including motifs with gaps. This class of kernels allows the inclusion of pairwise amino acid distances into their computation. We further propose a multiclass support vector machine method which directly solves protein subcellular localization without resorting to the common approach of splitting the problem into several binary classification problems. To automatically search over families of possible amino acid motifs, we generalize our method to optimize over multiple kernels at the same time. We compare our automated approach to four other predictors on three different datasets.

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Zien, A., Ong, C. An Automated Combination of Sequence Motif Kernels for Predicting Protein Subcellular Localization (146), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, April 2006 (techreport)

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Training a Support Vector Machine in the Primal

Chapelle, O.

(147), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, April 2006, The version in the "Large Scale Kernel Machines" book is more up to date. (techreport)

Abstract
Most literature on Support Vector Machines (SVMs) concentrate on the dual optimization problem. In this paper, we would like to point out that the primal problem can also be solved efficiently, both for linear and non-linear SVMs, and there is no reason for ignoring it. Moreover, from the primal point of view, new families of algorithms for large scale SVM training can be investigated.

PDF [BibTex]

Chapelle, O. Training a Support Vector Machine in the Primal (147), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, April 2006, The version in the "Large Scale Kernel Machines" book is more up to date. (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Cross-Validation Optimization for Structured Hessian Kernel Methods

Seeger, M., Chapelle, O.

Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, February 2006 (techreport)

Abstract
We address the problem of learning hyperparameters in kernel methods for which the Hessian of the objective is structured. We propose an approximation to the cross-validation log likelihood whose gradient can be computed analytically, solving the hyperparameter learning problem efficiently through nonlinear optimization. Crucially, our learning method is based entirely on matrix-vector multiplication primitives with the kernel matrices and their derivatives, allowing straightforward specialization to new kernels or to large datasets. When applied to the problem of multi-way classification, our method scales linearly in the number of classes and gives rise to state-of-the-art results on a remote imaging task.

PDF Web [BibTex]

Seeger, M., Chapelle, O. Cross-Validation Optimization for Structured Hessian Kernel Methods Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, February 2006 (techreport)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Implicit Wiener Series, Part II: Regularised estimation

Gehler, P., Franz, M.

(148), Max Planck Institute, 2006 (techreport)

pdf [BibTex]

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.

PDF PostScript [BibTex]

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

PDF PostScript [BibTex]

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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)

Web [BibTex]

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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)

Web [BibTex]

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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.

PDF Web [BibTex]

2000

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

PDF Web [BibTex]

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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􏰤

PDF [BibTex]

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

PDF [BibTex]