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54 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2006

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Some observations on the pedestal effect or dipper function

Henning, B., Wichmann, F.

Journal of Vision, 6(13):50, 2006 Fall Vision Meeting of the Optical Society of America, December 2006 (poster)

Abstract
The pedestal effect is the large improvement in the detectabilty of a sinusoidal “signal” grating observed when the signal is added to a masking or “pedestal” grating of the same spatial frequency, orientation, and phase. We measured the pedestal effect in both broadband and notched noise - noise from which a 1.5-octave band centred on the signal frequency had been removed. Although the pedestal effect persists in broadband noise, it almost disappears in the notched noise. Furthermore, the pedestal effect is substantial when either high- or low-pass masking noise is used. We conclude that the pedestal effect in the absence of notched noise results principally from the use of information derived from channels with peak sensitivities at spatial frequencies different from that of the signal and pedestal. The spatial-frequency components of the notched noise above and below the spatial frequency of the signal and pedestal prevent the use of information about changes in contrast carried in channels tuned to spatial frequencies that are very much different from that of the signal and pedestal. Thus the pedestal or dipper effect measured without notched noise is not a characteristic of individual spatial-frequency tuned channels.

Web DOI [BibTex]

2006

Henning, B., Wichmann, F. Some observations on the pedestal effect or dipper function Journal of Vision, 6(13):50, 2006 Fall Vision Meeting of the Optical Society of America, December 2006 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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Prediction of Protein Function from Networks

Shin, H., Tsuda, K.

In Semi-Supervised Learning, pages: 361-376, Adaptive Computation and Machine Learning, (Editors: Chapelle, O. , B. Schölkopf, A. Zien), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, November 2006 (inbook)

Abstract
In computational biology, it is common to represent domain knowledge using graphs. Frequently there exist multiple graphs for the same set of nodes, representing information from different sources, and no single graph is sufficient to predict class labels of unlabelled nodes reliably. One way to enhance reliability is to integrate multiple graphs, since individual graphs are partly independent and partly complementary to each other for prediction. In this chapter, we describe an algorithm to assign weights to multiple graphs within graph-based semi-supervised learning. Both predicting class labels and searching for weights for combining multiple graphs are formulated into one convex optimization problem. The graph-combining method is applied to functional class prediction of yeast proteins.When compared with individual graphs, the combined graph with optimized weights performs significantly better than any single graph.When compared with the semidefinite programming-based support vector machine (SDP/SVM), it shows comparable accuracy in a remarkably short time. Compared with a combined graph with equal-valued weights, our method could select important graphs without loss of accuracy, which implies the desirable property of integration with selectivity.

Web [BibTex]

Shin, H., Tsuda, K. Prediction of Protein Function from Networks In Semi-Supervised Learning, pages: 361-376, Adaptive Computation and Machine Learning, (Editors: Chapelle, O. , B. Schölkopf, A. Zien), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, November 2006 (inbook)

Web [BibTex]

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Discrete Regularization

Zhou, D., Schölkopf, B.

In Semi-supervised Learning, pages: 237-250, Adaptive computation and machine learning, (Editors: O Chapelle and B Schölkopf and A Zien), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, November 2006 (inbook)

Abstract
Many real-world machine learning problems are situated on finite discrete sets, including dimensionality reduction, clustering, and transductive inference. A variety of approaches for learning from finite sets has been proposed from different motivations and for different problems. In most of those approaches, a finite set is modeled as a graph, in which the edges encode pairwise relationships among the objects in the set. Consequently many concepts and methods from graph theory are adopted. In particular, the graph Laplacian is widely used. In this chapter we present a systemic framework for learning from a finite set represented as a graph. We develop discrete analogues of a number of differential operators, and then construct a discrete analogue of classical regularization theory based on those discrete differential operators. The graph Laplacian based approaches are special cases of this general discrete regularization framework. An important thing implied in this framework is that we have a wide choices of regularization on graph in addition to the widely-used graph Laplacian based one.

PDF Web [BibTex]

Zhou, D., Schölkopf, B. Discrete Regularization In Semi-supervised Learning, pages: 237-250, Adaptive computation and machine learning, (Editors: O Chapelle and B Schölkopf and A Zien), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, November 2006 (inbook)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Optimizing Spatial Filters for BCI: Margin- and Evidence-Maximization Approaches

Farquhar, J., Hill, N., Schölkopf, B.

Challenging Brain-Computer Interfaces: MAIA Workshop 2006, pages: 1, November 2006 (poster)

Abstract
We present easy-to-use alternatives to the often-used two-stage Common Spatial Pattern + classifier approach for spatial filtering and classification of Event-Related Desychnronization signals in BCI. We report two algorithms that aim to optimize the spatial filters according to a criterion more directly related to the ability of the algorithms to generalize to unseen data. Both are based upon the idea of treating the spatial filter coefficients as hyperparameters of a kernel or covariance function. We then optimize these hyper-parameters directly along side the normal classifier parameters with respect to our chosen learning objective function. The two objectives considered are margin maximization as used in Support-Vector Machines and the evidence maximization framework used in Gaussian Processes. Our experiments assessed generalization error as a function of the number of training points used, on 9 BCI competition data sets and 5 offline motor imagery data sets measured in Tubingen. Both our approaches sho w consistent improvements relative to the commonly used CSP+linear classifier combination. Strikingly, the improvement is most significant in the higher noise cases, when either few trails are used for training, or with the most poorly performing subjects. This a reversal of the usual "rich get richer" effect in the development of CSP extensions, which tend to perform best when the signal is strong enough to accurately find their additional parameters. This makes our approach particularly suitable for clinical application where high levels of noise are to be expected.

PDF PDF [BibTex]

Farquhar, J., Hill, N., Schölkopf, B. Optimizing Spatial Filters for BCI: Margin- and Evidence-Maximization Approaches Challenging Brain-Computer Interfaces: MAIA Workshop 2006, pages: 1, November 2006 (poster)

PDF PDF [BibTex]

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Learning Eye Movements

Kienzle, W., Wichmann, F., Schölkopf, B., Franz, M.

Sensory Coding And The Natural Environment, 2006, pages: 1, September 2006 (poster)

Abstract
The human visual system samples images through saccadic eye movements which rapidly change the point of fixation. Although the selection of eye movement targets depends on numerous top-down mechanisms, a number of recent studies have shown that low-level image features such as local contrast or edges play an important role. These studies typically used predefined image features which were afterwards experimentally verified. Here, we follow a complementary approach: instead of testing a set of candidate image features, we infer these hypotheses from the data, using methods from statistical learning. To this end, we train a non-linear classifier on fixated vs. randomly selected image patches without making any physiological assumptions. The resulting classifier can be essentially characterized by a nonlinear combination of two center-surround receptive fields. We find that the prediction performance of this simple model on our eye movement data is indistinguishable from the physiologically motivated model of Itti & Koch (2000) which is far more complex. In particular, we obtain a comparable performance without using any multi-scale representations, long-range interactions or oriented image features.

Web [BibTex]

Kienzle, W., Wichmann, F., Schölkopf, B., Franz, M. Learning Eye Movements Sensory Coding And The Natural Environment, 2006, pages: 1, September 2006 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Classification of natural scenes: Critical features revisited

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K.

Journal of Vision, 6(6):561, 6th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), June 2006 (poster)

Abstract
Human observers are capable of detecting animals within novel natural scenes with remarkable speed and accuracy. Despite the seeming complexity of such decisions it has been hypothesized that a simple global image feature, the relative abundance of high spatial frequencies at certain orientations, could underly such fast image classification (A. Torralba & A. Oliva, Network: Comput. Neural Syst., 2003). We successfully used linear discriminant analysis to classify a set of 11.000 images into “animal” and “non-animal” images based on their individual amplitude spectra only (Drewes, Wichmann, Gegenfurtner VSS 2005). We proceeded to sort the images based on the performance of our classifier, retaining only the best and worst classified 400 images (“best animals”, “best distractors” and “worst animals”, “worst distractors”). We used a Go/No-go paradigm to evaluate human performance on this subset of our images. Both reaction time and proportion of correctly classified images showed a significant effect of classification difficulty. Images more easily classified by our algorithm were also classified faster and better by humans, as predicted by the Torralba & Oliva hypothesis. We then equated the amplitude spectra of the 400 images, which, by design, reduced algorithmic performance to chance whereas human performance was only slightly reduced (cf. Wichmann, Rosas, Gegenfurtner, VSS 2005). Most importantly, the same images as before were still classified better and faster, suggesting that even in the original condition features other than specifics of the amplitude spectrum made particular images easy to classify, clearly at odds with the Torralba & Oliva hypothesis.

Web DOI [BibTex]

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Classification of natural scenes: Critical features revisited Journal of Vision, 6(6):561, 6th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), June 2006 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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The pedestal effect is caused by off-frequency looking, not nonlinear transduction or contrast gain-control

Wichmann, F., Henning, B.

Journal of Vision, 6(6):194, 6th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), June 2006 (poster)

Abstract
The pedestal or dipper effect is the large improvement in the detectabilty of a sinusoidal grating observed when the signal is added to a pedestal or masking grating having the signal‘s spatial frequency, orientation, and phase. The effect is largest with pedestal contrasts just above the ‘threshold‘ in the absence of a pedestal. We measured the pedestal effect in both broadband and notched masking noise---noise from which a 1.5- octave band centered on the signal and pedestal frequency had been removed. The pedestal effect persists in broadband noise, but almost disappears with notched noise. The spatial-frequency components of the notched noise that lie above and below the spatial frequency of the signal and pedestal prevent the use of information about changes in contrast carried in channels tuned to spatial frequencies that are very much different from that of the signal and pedestal. We conclude that the pedestal effect in the absence of notched noise results principally from the use of information derived from channels with peak sensitivities at spatial frequencies that are different from that of the signal and pedestal. Thus the pedestal or dipper effect is not a characteristic of individual spatial-frequency tuned channels.

Web DOI [BibTex]

Wichmann, F., Henning, B. The pedestal effect is caused by off-frequency looking, not nonlinear transduction or contrast gain-control Journal of Vision, 6(6):194, 6th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), June 2006 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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The Pedestal Effect is Caused by Off-Frequency Looking, not Nonlinear Transduction or Contrast Gain-Control

Wichmann, F., Henning, G.

9, pages: 174, 9th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), March 2006 (poster)

Abstract
The pedestal or dipper effect is the large improvement in the detectability of a sinusoidal grating observed when the signal is added to a pedestal or masking grating having the signal‘s spatial frequency, orientation, and phase. The effect is largest with pedestal contrasts just above the ‘threshold’ in the absence of a pedestal. We measured the pedestal effect in both broadband and notched masking noise---noise from which a 1.5-octave band centered on the signal and pedestal frequency had been removed. The pedestal effect persists in broadband noise, but almost disappears with notched noise. The spatial-frequency components of the notched noise that lie above and below the spatial frequency of the signal and pedestal prevent the use of information about changes in contrast carried in channels tuned to spatial frequencies that are very much different from that of the signal and pedestal. We conclude that the pedestal effect in the absence of notched noise results principally from the use of information derived from channels with peak sensitivities at spatial frequencies that are different from that of the signal and pedestal. Thus the pedestal or dipper effect is not a characteristic of individual spatial-frequency tuned channels.

Web [BibTex]

Wichmann, F., Henning, G. The Pedestal Effect is Caused by Off-Frequency Looking, not Nonlinear Transduction or Contrast Gain-Control 9, pages: 174, 9th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), March 2006 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Efficient tests for the deconvolution hypothesis

Langovoy, M.

Workshop on Statistical Inverse Problems, March 2006 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Langovoy, M. Efficient tests for the deconvolution hypothesis Workshop on Statistical Inverse Problems, March 2006 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Classification of Natural Scenes: Critical Features Revisited

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K.

9, pages: 92, 9th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), March 2006 (poster)

Abstract
Human observers are capable of detecting animals within novel natural scenes with remarkable speed and accuracy. Despite the seeming complexity of such decisions it has been hypothesized that a simple global image feature, the relative abundance of high spatial frequencies at certain orientations, could underly such fast image classification [1]. We successfully used linear discriminant analysis to classify a set of 11.000 images into “animal” and “non-animal” images based on their individual amplitude spectra only [2]. We proceeded to sort the images based on the performance of our classifier, retaining only the best and worst classified 400 images ("best animals", "best distractors" and "worst animals", "worst distractors"). We used a Go/No-go paradigm to evaluate human performance on this subset of our images. Both reaction time and proportion of correctly classified images showed a significant effect of classification difficulty. Images more easily classified by our algorithm were also classified faster and better by humans, as predicted by the Torralba & Oliva hypothesis. We then equated the amplitude spectra of the 400 images, which, by design, reduced algorithmic performance to chance whereas human performance was only slightly reduced [3]. Most importantly, the same images as before were still classified better and faster, suggesting that even in the original condition features other than specifics of the amplitude spectrum made particular images easy to classify, clearly at odds with the Torralba & Oliva hypothesis.

Web [BibTex]

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Classification of Natural Scenes: Critical Features Revisited 9, pages: 92, 9th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), March 2006 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Factorial Coding of Natural Images: How Effective are Linear Models in Removing Higher-Order Dependencies?

Bethge, M.

9, pages: 90, 9th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), March 2006 (poster)

Abstract
The performance of unsupervised learning models for natural images is evaluated quantitatively by means of information theory. We estimate the gain in statistical independence (the multi-information reduction) achieved with independent component analysis (ICA), principal component analysis (PCA), zero-phase whitening, and predictive coding. Predictive coding is translated into the transform coding framework, where it can be characterized by the constraint of a triangular filter matrix. A randomly sampled whitening basis and the Haar wavelet are included into the comparison as well. The comparison of all these methods is carried out for different patch sizes, ranging from 2x2 to 16x16 pixels. In spite of large differences in the shape of the basis functions, we find only small differences in the multi-information between all decorrelation transforms (5% or less) for all patch sizes. Among the second-order methods, PCA is optimal for small patch sizes and predictive coding performs best for large patch sizes. The extra gain achieved with ICA is always less than 2%. In conclusion, the `edge filters‘ found with ICA lead only to a surprisingly small improvement in terms of its actual objective.

Web [BibTex]

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Classification of natural scenes: critical features revisited

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K.

Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 251, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Classification of natural scenes: critical features revisited Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 251, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

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Texture and haptic cues in slant discrimination: combination is sensitive to reliability but not statistically optimal

Rosas, P., Wagemans, J., Ernst, M., Wichmann, F.

Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen (TeaP 2006), 48, pages: 80, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

Rosas, P., Wagemans, J., Ernst, M., Wichmann, F. Texture and haptic cues in slant discrimination: combination is sensitive to reliability but not statistically optimal Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen (TeaP 2006), 48, pages: 80, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

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Combining a Filter Method with SVMs

Lal, T., Chapelle, O., Schölkopf, B.

In Feature Extraction: Foundations and Applications, Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing, Vol. 207, pages: 439-446, Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing ; 207, (Editors: I Guyon and M Nikravesh and S Gunn and LA Zadeh), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 2006 (inbook)

Abstract
Our goal for the competition (feature selection competition NIPS 2003) was to evaluate the usefulness of simple machine learning techniques. We decided to use the correlation criteria as a feature selection method and Support Vector Machines for the classification part. Here we explain how we chose the regularization parameter C of the SVM, how we determined the kernel parameter and how we estimated the number of features used for each data set. All analyzes were carried out on the training sets of the competition data. We choose the data set Arcene as an example to explain the approach step by step. In our view the point of this competition was the construction of a well performing classifier rather than the systematic analysis of a specific approach. This is why our search for the best classifier was only guided by the described methods and that we deviated from the road map at several occasions. All calculations were done with the software Spider [2004].

PDF DOI [BibTex]

Lal, T., Chapelle, O., Schölkopf, B. Combining a Filter Method with SVMs In Feature Extraction: Foundations and Applications, Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing, Vol. 207, pages: 439-446, Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing ; 207, (Editors: I Guyon and M Nikravesh and S Gunn and LA Zadeh), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 2006 (inbook)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

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Embedded methods

Lal, T., Chapelle, O., Weston, J., Elisseeff, A.

In Feature Extraction: Foundations and Applications, pages: 137-165, Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing ; 207, (Editors: Guyon, I. , S. Gunn, M. Nikravesh, L. A. Zadeh), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 2006 (inbook)

Abstract
Embedded methods are a relatively new approach to feature selection. Unlike filter methods, which do not incorporate learning, and wrapper approaches, which can be used with arbitrary classifiers, in embedded methods the features selection part can not be separated from the learning part. Existing embedded methods are reviewed based on a unifying mathematical framework.

PDF Web [BibTex]

Lal, T., Chapelle, O., Weston, J., Elisseeff, A. Embedded methods In Feature Extraction: Foundations and Applications, pages: 137-165, Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing ; 207, (Editors: Guyon, I. , S. Gunn, M. Nikravesh, L. A. Zadeh), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 2006 (inbook)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Ähnlichkeitsmasse in Modellen zur Kategorienbildung

Jäkel, F., Wichmann, F.

Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 223, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

Jäkel, F., Wichmann, F. Ähnlichkeitsmasse in Modellen zur Kategorienbildung Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 223, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

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The pedestal effect is caused by off-frequency looking, not nonlinear transduction or contrast gain-control

Wichmann, F., Henning, B.

Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 205, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

Wichmann, F., Henning, B. The pedestal effect is caused by off-frequency looking, not nonlinear transduction or contrast gain-control Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 205, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

2004

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S-cones contribute to flicker brightness in human vision

Wehrhahn, C., Hill, NJ., Dillenburger, B.

34(174.12), 34th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), October 2004 (poster)

Abstract
In the retina of primates three cone types sensitive to short, middle and long wavelengths of light convert photons into electrical signals. Many investigators have presented evidence that, in color normal observers, the signals of cones sensitive to short wavelengths of light (S-cones) do not contribute to the perception of brightness of a colored surface when this is alternated with an achromatic reference (flicker brightness). Other studies indicate that humans do use S-cone signals when performing this task. Common to all these studies is the small number of observers, whose performance data are reported. Considerable variability in the occurrence of cone types across observers has been found, but, to our knowledge, no cone counts exist from larger populations of humans. We reinvestigated how much the S-cones contribute to flicker brightness. 76 color normal observers were tested in a simple psychophysical procedure neutral to the cone type occurence (Teufel & Wehrhahn (2000), JOSA A 17: 994 - 1006). The data show that, in the majority of our observers, S-cones provide input with a negative sign - relative to L- and M-cone contribution - in the task in question. There is indeed considerable between-subject variability such that for 20 out of 76 observers the magnitude of this input does not differ significantly from 0. Finally, we argue that the sign of S-cone contribution to flicker brightness perception by an observer cannot be used to infer the relative sign their contributions to the neuronal signals carrying the information leading to the perception of flicker brightness. We conclude that studies which use only a small number of observers may easily fail to find significant evidence for the small but significant population tendency for the S-cones to contribute to flicker brightness. Our results confirm all earlier results and reconcile their contradictory interpretations.

Web [BibTex]

2004

Wehrhahn, C., Hill, NJ., Dillenburger, B. S-cones contribute to flicker brightness in human vision 34(174.12), 34th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), October 2004 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Learning Motor Primitives with Reinforcement Learning

Peters, J., Schaal, S.

AAAI Fall Symposium on Real-Life Reinforcement Learning 2004, 2004, pages: 1, October 2004 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Peters, J., Schaal, S. Learning Motor Primitives with Reinforcement Learning AAAI Fall Symposium on Real-Life Reinforcement Learning 2004, 2004, pages: 1, October 2004 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Analysis of differential gene expression in healthy and osteoarthritic cartilage and isolated chondrocytes by microarray analysis

Aigner, T., Saas, J., Zien, A., Zimmer, R., Gebhard, P., Knorr, T.

In Volume 1: Cellular and Molecular Tools, pages: 109-128, (Editors: Sabatini, M., P. Pastoureau and F. De Ceuninck), Humana Press, July 2004 (inbook)

Abstract
The regulation of chondrocytes in osteoarthritic cartilage and the expression of specific gene products by these cells during early-onset and late-stage osteoarthritis are not well characterized. With the introduction of cDNA array technology, the measurement of thousands of different genes in one small tissue sample can be carried out. Interpretation of gene expression analyses in articular cartilage is aided by the fact that this tissue contains only one cell type in both normal and diseased conditions. However, care has to be taken not to over- and misinterpret results, and some major challenges must be overcome in order to utilize the potential of this technology properly in the field of osteoarthritis.

Web [BibTex]

Aigner, T., Saas, J., Zien, A., Zimmer, R., Gebhard, P., Knorr, T. Analysis of differential gene expression in healthy and osteoarthritic cartilage and isolated chondrocytes by microarray analysis In Volume 1: Cellular and Molecular Tools, pages: 109-128, (Editors: Sabatini, M., P. Pastoureau and F. De Ceuninck), Humana Press, July 2004 (inbook)

Web [BibTex]

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Distributed Command Execution

Stark, S., Berlin, M.

In BSD Hacks: 100 industrial-strength tips & tools, pages: 152-152, (Editors: Lavigne, Dru), O’Reilly, Beijing, May 2004 (inbook)

Abstract
Often you want to execute a command not only on one computer, but on several at once. For example, you might want to report the current statistics on a group of managed servers or update all of your web servers at once.

[BibTex]

Stark, S., Berlin, M. Distributed Command Execution In BSD Hacks: 100 industrial-strength tips & tools, pages: 152-152, (Editors: Lavigne, Dru), O’Reilly, Beijing, May 2004 (inbook)

[BibTex]

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Learning Motor Primitives with Reinforcement Learning

Peters, J., Schaal, S.

11th Joint Symposium on Neural Computation (JSNC 2004), 11, pages: 1, May 2004 (poster)

Abstract
One of the major challenges in action generation for robotics and in the understanding of human motor control is to learn the "building blocks of move- ment generation," or more precisely, motor primitives. Recently, Ijspeert et al. [1, 2] suggested a novel framework how to use nonlinear dynamical systems as motor primitives. While a lot of progress has been made in teaching these mo- tor primitives using supervised or imitation learning, the self-improvement by interaction of the system with the environment remains a challenging problem. In this poster, we evaluate different reinforcement learning approaches can be used in order to improve the performance of motor primitives. For pursuing this goal, we highlight the difficulties with current reinforcement learning methods, and line out how these lead to a novel algorithm which is based on natural policy gradients [3]. We compare this algorithm to previous reinforcement learning algorithms in the context of dynamic motor primitive learning, and show that it outperforms these by at least an order of magnitude. We demonstrate the efficiency of the resulting reinforcement learning method for creating complex behaviors for automous robotics. The studied behaviors will include both discrete, finite tasks such as baseball swings, as well as complex rhythmic patterns as they occur in biped locomotion.

Web [BibTex]

Peters, J., Schaal, S. Learning Motor Primitives with Reinforcement Learning 11th Joint Symposium on Neural Computation (JSNC 2004), 11, pages: 1, May 2004 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Human Classification Behaviour Revisited by Machine Learning

Graf, A., Wichmann, F., Bülthoff, H., Schölkopf, B.

7, pages: 134, (Editors: Bülthoff, H.H., H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich and F.A. Wichmann), 7th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), Febuary 2004 (poster)

Abstract
We attempt to understand visual classication in humans using both psychophysical and machine learning techniques. Frontal views of human faces were used for a gender classication task. Human subjects classied the faces and their gender judgment, reaction time (RT) and condence rating (CR) were recorded for each face. RTs are longer for incorrect answers than for correct ones, high CRs are correlated with low classication errors and RTs decrease as the CRs increase. This results suggest that patterns difcult to classify need more computation by the brain than patterns easy to classify. Hyperplane learning algorithms such as Support Vector Machines (SVM), Relevance Vector Machines (RVM), Prototype learners (Prot) and K-means learners (Kmean) were used on the same classication task using the Principal Components of the texture and oweld representation of the faces. The classication performance of the learning algorithms was estimated using the face database with the true gender of the faces as labels, and also with the gender estimated by the subjects. Kmean yield a classication performance close to humans while SVM and RVM are much better. This surprising behaviour may be due to the fact that humans are trained on real faces during their lifetime while they were here tested on articial ones, while the algorithms were trained and tested on the same set of stimuli. We then correlated the human responses to the distance of the stimuli to the separating hyperplane (SH) of the learning algorithms. On the whole stimuli far from the SH are classied more accurately, faster and with higher condence than those near to the SH if we pool data across all our subjects and stimuli. We also nd three noteworthy results. First, SVMs and RVMs can learn to classify faces using the subjects' labels but perform much better when using the true labels. Second, correlating the average response of humans (classication error, RT or CR) with the distance to the SH on a face-by-face basis using Spearman's rank correlation coefcients shows that RVMs recreate human performance most closely in every respect. Third, the mean-of-class prototype, its popularity in neuroscience notwithstanding, is the least human-like classier in all cases examined.

Web [BibTex]

Graf, A., Wichmann, F., Bülthoff, H., Schölkopf, B. Human Classification Behaviour Revisited by Machine Learning 7, pages: 134, (Editors: Bülthoff, H.H., H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich and F.A. Wichmann), 7th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), Febuary 2004 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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m-Alternative-Forced-Choice: Improving the Efficiency of the Method of Constant Stimuli

Jäkel, F., Hill, J., Wichmann, F.

7, pages: 118, 7th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2004 (poster)

Abstract
We explored several ways to improve the efficiency of measuring psychometric functions without resorting to adaptive procedures. a) The number m of alternatives in an m-alternative-forced-choice (m-AFC) task improves the efficiency of the method of constant stimuli. b) When alternatives are presented simultaneously on different positions on a screen rather than sequentially time can be saved and memory load for the subject can be reduced. c) A touch-screen can further help to make the experimental procedure more intuitive. We tested these ideas in the measurement of contrast sensitivity and compared them to results obtained by sequential presentation in two-interval-forced-choice (2-IFC). Qualitatively all methods (m-AFC and 2-IFC) recovered the characterictic shape of the contrast sensitivity function in three subjects. The m-AFC paradigm only took about 60% of the time of the 2-IFC task. We tried m=2,4,8 and found 4-AFC to give the best model fits and 2-AFC to have the least bias.

Web [BibTex]

Jäkel, F., Hill, J., Wichmann, F. m-Alternative-Forced-Choice: Improving the Efficiency of the Method of Constant Stimuli 7, pages: 118, 7th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2004 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Efficient Approximations for Support Vector Classifiers

Kienzle, W., Franz, M.

7, pages: 68, 7th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2004 (poster)

Abstract
In face detection, support vector machines (SVM) and neural networks (NN) have been shown to outperform most other classication methods. While both approaches are learning-based, there are distinct advantages and drawbacks to each method: NNs are difcult to design and train but can lead to very small and efcient classiers. In comparison, SVM model selection and training is rather straightforward, and, more importantly, guaranteed to converge to a globally optimal (in the sense of training errors) solution. Unfortunately, SVM classiers tend to have large representations which are inappropriate for time-critical image processing applications. In this work, we examine various existing and new methods for simplifying support vector decision rules. Our goal is to obtain efcient classiers (as with NNs) while keeping the numerical and statistical advantages of SVMs. For a given SVM solution, we compute a cascade of approximations with increasing complexities. Each classier is tuned so that the detection rate is near 100%. At run-time, the rst (simplest) detector is evaluated on the whole image. Then, any subsequent classier is applied only to those positions that have been classied as positive throughout all previous stages. The false positive rate at the end equals that of the last (i.e. most complex) detector. In contrast, since many image positions are discarded by lower-complexity classiers, the average computation time per patch decreases signicantly compared to the time needed for evaluating the highest-complexity classier alone.

Web [BibTex]

Kienzle, W., Franz, M. Efficient Approximations for Support Vector Classifiers 7, pages: 68, 7th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2004 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Selective Attention to Auditory Stimuli: A Brain-Computer Interface Paradigm

Hill, N., Lal, T., Schröder, M., Hinterberger, T., Birbaumer, N., Schölkopf, B.

7, pages: 102, (Editors: Bülthoff, H.H., H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich and F.A. Wichmann), 7th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2004 (poster)

Abstract
During the last 20 years several paradigms for Brain Computer Interfaces have been proposed— see [1] for a recent review. They can be divided into (a) stimulus-driven paradigms, using e.g. event-related potentials or visual evoked potentials from an EEG signal, and (b) patient-driven paradigms such as those that use premotor potentials correlated with imagined action, or slow cortical potentials (e.g. [2]). Our aim is to develop a stimulus-driven paradigm that is applicable in practice to patients. Due to the unreliability of visual perception in “locked-in” patients in the later stages of disorders such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, we concentrate on the auditory modality. Speci- cally, we look for the effects, in the EEG signal, of selective attention to one of two concurrent auditory stimulus streams, exploiting the increased activation to attended stimuli that is seen under some circumstances [3]. We present the results of our preliminary experiments on normal subjects. On each of 400 trials, two repetitive stimuli (sequences of drum-beats or other pulsed stimuli) could be heard simultaneously. The two stimuli were distinguishable from one another by their acoustic properties, by their source location (one from a speaker to the left of the subject, the other from the right), and by their differing periodicities. A visual cue preceded the stimulus by 500 msec, indicating which of the two stimuli to attend to, and the subject was instructed to count the beats in the attended stimulus stream. There were up to 6 beats of each stimulus: with equal probability on each trial, all 6 were played, or the fourth was omitted, or the fth was omitted. The 40-channel EEG signals were analyzed ofine to reconstruct which of the streams was attended on each trial. A linear Support Vector Machine [4] was trained on a random subset of the data and tested on the remainder. Results are compared from two types of pre-processing of the signal: for each stimulus stream, (a) EEG signals at the stream's beat periodicity are emphasized, or (b) EEG signals following beats are contrasted with those following missing beats. Both forms of pre-processing show promising results, i.e. that selective attention to one or the other auditory stream yields signals that are classiable signicantly above chance performance. In particular, the second pre-processing was found to be robust to reduction in the number of features used for classication (cf. [5]), helping us to eliminate noise.

PDF Web [BibTex]

Hill, N., Lal, T., Schröder, M., Hinterberger, T., Birbaumer, N., Schölkopf, B. Selective Attention to Auditory Stimuli: A Brain-Computer Interface Paradigm 7, pages: 102, (Editors: Bülthoff, H.H., H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich and F.A. Wichmann), 7th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2004 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Texture and Haptic Cues in Slant Discrimination: Measuring the Effect of Texture Type

Rosas, P., Wichmann, F., Ernst, M., Wagemans, J.

7, pages: 165, (Editors: Bülthoff, H. H., H. A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F. A. Wichmann), 7th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2004 (poster)

Abstract
In a number of models of depth cue combination the depth percept is constructed via a weighted average combination of independent depth estimations. The inuence of each cue in such average depends on the reliability of the source of information [1,5]. In particular, Ernst and Banks (2002) formulate such combination as that of the minimum variance unbiased estimator that can be constructed from the available cues. We have observed systematic differences in slant discrimination performance of human observers when different types of textures were used as cue to slant [4]. If the depth percept behaves as described above, our measurements of the slopes of the psychometric functions provide the predicted weights for the texture cue for the ranked texture types. However, the results for slant discrimination obtained when combining these texture types with object motion results are difcult to reconcile with the minimum variance unbiased estimator model [3]. This apparent failure of such model might be explained by the existence of a coupling of texture and motion, violating the assumption of independence of cues. Hillis, Ernst, Banks, and Landy (2002) [2] have shown that while for between-modality combination the human visual system has access to the single-cue information, for withinmodality combination (visual cues) the single-cue information is lost. This suggests a coupling between visual cues and independence between visual and haptic cues. Then, in the present study we combined the different texture types with haptic information in a slant discrimination task, to test whether in the between-modality condition these cues are combined as predicted by an unbiased, minimum variance estimator model. The measured weights for the cues were consistent with a combination rule sensitive to the reliability of the sources of information, but did not match the predictions of a statistically optimal combination.

PDF Web [BibTex]

Rosas, P., Wichmann, F., Ernst, M., Wagemans, J. Texture and Haptic Cues in Slant Discrimination: Measuring the Effect of Texture Type 7, pages: 165, (Editors: Bülthoff, H. H., H. A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F. A. Wichmann), 7th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2004 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Efficient Approximations for Support Vector Classiers

Kienzle, W., Franz, M.

7, pages: 68, 7th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2004 (poster)

Abstract
In face detection, support vector machines (SVM) and neural networks (NN) have been shown to outperform most other classication methods. While both approaches are learning-based, there are distinct advantages and drawbacks to each method: NNs are difcult to design and train but can lead to very small and efcient classiers. In comparison, SVM model selection and training is rather straightforward, and, more importantly, guaranteed to converge to a globally optimal (in the sense of training errors) solution. Unfortunately, SVM classiers tend to have large representations which are inappropriate for time-critical image processing applications. In this work, we examine various existing and new methods for simplifying support vector decision rules. Our goal is to obtain efcient classiers (as with NNs) while keeping the numerical and statistical advantages of SVMs. For a given SVM solution, we compute a cascade of approximations with increasing complexities. Each classier is tuned so that the detection rate is near 100%. At run-time, the rst (simplest) detector is evaluated on the whole image. Then, any subsequent classier is applied only to those positions that have been classied as positive throughout all previous stages. The false positive rate at the end equals that of the last (i.e. most complex) detector. In contrast, since many image positions are discarded by lower-complexity classiers, the average computation time per patch decreases signicantly compared to the time needed for evaluating the highest-complexity classier alone.

Web [BibTex]

Kienzle, W., Franz, M. Efficient Approximations for Support Vector Classiers 7, pages: 68, 7th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2004 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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EEG Channel Selection for Brain Computer Interface Systems Based on Support Vector Methods

Schröder, M., Lal, T., Bogdan, M., Schölkopf, B.

7, pages: 50, (Editors: Bülthoff, H.H., H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich and F.A. Wichmann), 7th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2004 (poster)

Abstract
A Brain Computer Interface (BCI) system allows the direct interpretation of brain activity patterns (e.g. EEG signals) by a computer. Typical BCI applications comprise spelling aids or environmental control systems supporting paralyzed patients that have lost motor control completely. The design of an EEG based BCI system requires good answers for the problem of selecting useful features during the performance of a mental task as well as for the problem of classifying these features. For the special case of choosing appropriate EEG channels from several available channels, we propose the application of variants of the Support Vector Machine (SVM) for both problems. Although these algorithms do not rely on prior knowledge they can provide more accurate solutions than standard lter methods [1] for feature selection which usually incorporate prior knowledge about neural activity patterns during the performed mental tasks. For judging the importance of features we introduce a new relevance measure and apply it to EEG channels. Although we base the relevance measure for this purpose on the previously introduced algorithms, it does in general not depend on specic algorithms but can be derived using arbitrary combinations of feature selectors and classifiers.

Web [BibTex]

Schröder, M., Lal, T., Bogdan, M., Schölkopf, B. EEG Channel Selection for Brain Computer Interface Systems Based on Support Vector Methods 7, pages: 50, (Editors: Bülthoff, H.H., H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich and F.A. Wichmann), 7th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2004 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Learning Depth

Sinz, F., Franz, MO.

pages: 69, (Editors: H.H.Bülthoff, H.A.Mallot, R.Ulrich,F.A.Wichmann), 7th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2004 (poster)

Abstract
The depth of a point in space can be estimated by observing its image position from two different viewpoints. The classical approach to stereo vision calculates depth from the two projection equations which together form a stereocamera model. An unavoidable preparatory work for this solution is a calibration procedure, i.e., estimating the external (position and orientation) and internal (focal length, lens distortions etc.) parameters of each camera from a set of points with known spatial position and their corresponding image positions. This is normally done by iteratively linearizing the single camera models and reestimating their parameters according to the error on the known datapoints. The advantage of the classical method is the maximal usage of prior knowledge about the underlying physical processes and the explicit estimation of meaningful model parameters such as focal length or camera position in space. However, the approach neglects the nonlinear nature of the problem such that the results critically depend on the choice of the initial values for the parameters. In this study, we approach the depth estimation problem from a different point of view by applying generic machine learning algorithms to learn the mapping from image coordinates to spatial position. These algorithms do not require any domain knowledge and are able to learn nonlinear functions by mapping the inputs into a higher-dimensional space. Compared to classical calibration, machine learning methods give a direct solution to the depth estimation problem which means that the values of the stereocamera parameters cannot be extracted from the learned mapping. On the poster, we compare the performance of classical camera calibration to that of different machine learning algorithms such as kernel ridge regression, gaussian processes and support vector regression. Our results indicate that generic learning approaches can lead to higher depth accuracies than classical calibration although no domain knowledge is used.

PDF Web [BibTex]

Sinz, F., Franz, MO. Learning Depth pages: 69, (Editors: H.H.Bülthoff, H.A.Mallot, R.Ulrich,F.A.Wichmann), 7th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2004 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Local Alignment Kernels for Biological Sequences

Vert, J., Saigo, H., Akutsu, T.

In Kernel Methods in Computational Biology, pages: 131-153, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA,, 2004 (inbook)

Web [BibTex]

Vert, J., Saigo, H., Akutsu, T. Local Alignment Kernels for Biological Sequences In Kernel Methods in Computational Biology, pages: 131-153, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA,, 2004 (inbook)

Web [BibTex]

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Gaussian Processes in Machine Learning

Rasmussen, CE.

In 3176, pages: 63-71, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, (Editors: Bousquet, O., U. von Luxburg and G. Rätsch), Springer, Heidelberg, 2004, Copyright by Springer (inbook)

Abstract
We give a basic introduction to Gaussian Process regression models. We focus on understanding the role of the stochastic process and how it is used to define a distribution over functions. We present the simple equations for incorporating training data and examine how to learn the hyperparameters using the marginal likelihood. We explain the practical advantages of Gaussian Process and end with conclusions and a look at the current trends in GP work.

PDF PostScript [BibTex]

Rasmussen, CE. Gaussian Processes in Machine Learning In 3176, pages: 63-71, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, (Editors: Bousquet, O., U. von Luxburg and G. Rätsch), Springer, Heidelberg, 2004, Copyright by Springer (inbook)

PDF PostScript [BibTex]

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Neural mechanisms underlying control of a Brain-Computer-Interface (BCI): Simultaneous recording of bold-response and EEG

Hinterberger, T., Wilhelm, B., Veit, R., Weiskopf, N., Lal, TN., Birbaumer, N.

2004 (poster)

Abstract
Brain computer interfaces (BCI) enable humans or animals to communicate or activate external devices without muscle activity using electric brain signals. The BCI Thought Translation Device (TTD) uses learned regulation of slow cortical potentials (SCPs), a skill most people and paralyzed patients can acquire with training periods of several hours up to months. The neurophysiological mechanisms and anatomical sources of SCPs and other event-related brain macro-potentials are well understood, but the neural mechanisms underlying learning of the self-regulation skill for BCI-use are unknown. To uncover the relevant areas of brain activation during regulation of SCPs, the TTD was combined with functional MRI and EEG was recorded inside the MRI scanner in twelve healthy participants who have learned to regulate their SCP with feedback and reinforcement. The results demonstrate activation of specific brain areas during execution of the brain regulation skill: successf! ul control of cortical positivity allowing a person to activate an external device was closely related to an increase of BOLD (blood oxygen level dependent) response in the basal ganglia and frontal premotor deactivation indicating learned regulation of a cortical-striatal loop responsible for local excitation thresholds of cortical assemblies. The data suggest that human users of a BCI learn the regulation of cortical excitation thresholds of large neuronal assemblies as a prerequisite of direct brain communication: the learning of this skill depends critically on an intact and flexible interaction between these cortico-basal ganglia-circuits. Supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the National Institute of Health (NIH).

[BibTex]

Hinterberger, T., Wilhelm, B., Veit, R., Weiskopf, N., Lal, TN., Birbaumer, N. Neural mechanisms underlying control of a Brain-Computer-Interface (BCI): Simultaneous recording of bold-response and EEG 2004 (poster)

[BibTex]

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Masking by plaid patterns revisited

Wichmann, F.

Experimentelle Psychologie. Beitr{\"a}ge zur 46. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 46, pages: 285, 2004 (poster)

[BibTex]

Wichmann, F. Masking by plaid patterns revisited Experimentelle Psychologie. Beitr{\"a}ge zur 46. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 46, pages: 285, 2004 (poster)

[BibTex]

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Protein Classification via Kernel Matrix Completion

Kin, T., Kato, T., Tsuda, K.

In pages: 261-274, (Editors: Schoelkopf, B., K. Tsuda and J.P. Vert), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA; USA, 2004 (inbook)

PDF [BibTex]

Kin, T., Kato, T., Tsuda, K. Protein Classification via Kernel Matrix Completion In pages: 261-274, (Editors: Schoelkopf, B., K. Tsuda and J.P. Vert), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA; USA, 2004 (inbook)

PDF [BibTex]

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Early visual processing—data, theory, models

Wichmann, F.

Experimentelle Psychologie. Beitr{\"a}ge zur 46. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 46, pages: 24, 2004 (poster)

[BibTex]

Wichmann, F. Early visual processing—data, theory, models Experimentelle Psychologie. Beitr{\"a}ge zur 46. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 46, pages: 24, 2004 (poster)

[BibTex]

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Introduction to Statistical Learning Theory

Bousquet, O., Boucheron, S., Lugosi, G.

In Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 3176, pages: 169-207, (Editors: Bousquet, O., U. von Luxburg and G. Rätsch), Springer, Heidelberg, Germany, 2004 (inbook)

PDF [BibTex]

Bousquet, O., Boucheron, S., Lugosi, G. Introduction to Statistical Learning Theory In Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 3176, pages: 169-207, (Editors: Bousquet, O., U. von Luxburg and G. Rätsch), Springer, Heidelberg, Germany, 2004 (inbook)

PDF [BibTex]

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A Primer on Kernel Methods

Vert, J., Tsuda, K., Schölkopf, B.

In Kernel Methods in Computational Biology, pages: 35-70, (Editors: B Schölkopf and K Tsuda and JP Vert), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, 2004 (inbook)

PDF [BibTex]

Vert, J., Tsuda, K., Schölkopf, B. A Primer on Kernel Methods In Kernel Methods in Computational Biology, pages: 35-70, (Editors: B Schölkopf and K Tsuda and JP Vert), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, 2004 (inbook)

PDF [BibTex]

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Concentration Inequalities

Boucheron, S., Lugosi, G., Bousquet, O.

In Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 3176, pages: 208-240, (Editors: Bousquet, O., U. von Luxburg and G. Rätsch), Springer, Heidelberg, Germany, 2004 (inbook)

PDF [BibTex]

Boucheron, S., Lugosi, G., Bousquet, O. Concentration Inequalities In Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 3176, pages: 208-240, (Editors: Bousquet, O., U. von Luxburg and G. Rätsch), Springer, Heidelberg, Germany, 2004 (inbook)

PDF [BibTex]

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Kernels for graphs

Kashima, H., Tsuda, K., Inokuchi, A.

In pages: 155-170, (Editors: Schoelkopf, B., K. Tsuda and J.P. Vert), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA; USA, 2004 (inbook)

PDF [BibTex]

Kashima, H., Tsuda, K., Inokuchi, A. Kernels for graphs In pages: 155-170, (Editors: Schoelkopf, B., K. Tsuda and J.P. Vert), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA; USA, 2004 (inbook)

PDF [BibTex]

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A primer on molecular biology

Zien, A.

In pages: 3-34, (Editors: Schoelkopf, B., K. Tsuda and J. P. Vert), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, 2004 (inbook)

Abstract
Modern molecular biology provides a rich source of challenging machine learning problems. This tutorial chapter aims to provide the necessary biological background knowledge required to communicate with biologists and to understand and properly formalize a number of most interesting problems in this application domain. The largest part of the chapter (its first section) is devoted to the cell as the basic unit of life. Four aspects of cells are reviewed in sequence: (1) the molecules that cells make use of (above all, proteins, RNA, and DNA); (2) the spatial organization of cells (``compartmentalization''); (3) the way cells produce proteins (``protein expression''); and (4) cellular communication and evolution (of cells and organisms). In the second section, an overview is provided of the most frequent measurement technologies, data types, and data sources. Finally, important open problems in the analysis of these data (bioinformatics challenges) are briefly outlined.

PDF PostScript Web [BibTex]

Zien, A. A primer on molecular biology In pages: 3-34, (Editors: Schoelkopf, B., K. Tsuda and J. P. Vert), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, 2004 (inbook)

PDF PostScript Web [BibTex]

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Implicit Wiener series for capturing higher-order interactions in images

Franz, M., Schölkopf, B.

Sensory coding and the natural environment, (Editors: Olshausen, B.A. and M. Lewicki), 2004 (poster)

Abstract
The information about the objects in an image is almost exclusively described by the higher-order interactions of its pixels. The Wiener series is one of the standard methods to systematically characterize these interactions. However, the classical estimation method of the Wiener expansion coefficients via cross-correlation suffers from severe problems that prevent its application to high-dimensional and strongly nonlinear signals such as images. We propose an estimation method based on regression in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space that overcomes these problems using polynomial kernels as known from Support Vector Machines and other kernel-based methods. Numerical experiments show performance advantages in terms of convergence, interpretability and system sizes that can be handled. By the time of the conference, we will be able to present first results on the higher-order structure of natural images.

[BibTex]

Franz, M., Schölkopf, B. Implicit Wiener series for capturing higher-order interactions in images Sensory coding and the natural environment, (Editors: Olshausen, B.A. and M. Lewicki), 2004 (poster)

[BibTex]

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Classification and Memory Behaviour of Man Revisited by Machine

Graf, A., Wichmann, F., Bülthoff, H., Schölkopf, B.

CSHL Meeting on Computational & Systems Neuroscience (COSYNE), 2004 (poster)

[BibTex]

Graf, A., Wichmann, F., Bülthoff, H., Schölkopf, B. Classification and Memory Behaviour of Man Revisited by Machine CSHL Meeting on Computational & Systems Neuroscience (COSYNE), 2004 (poster)

[BibTex]

2002

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Real-Time Statistical Learning for Oculomotor Control and Visuomotor Coordination

Vijayakumar, S., Souza, A., Peters, J., Conradt, J., Rutkowski, T., Ijspeert, A., Nakanishi, J., Inoue, M., Shibata, T., Wiryo, A., Itti, L., Amari, S., Schaal, S.

(Editors: Becker, S. , S. Thrun, K. Obermayer), Sixteenth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), December 2002 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

2002

Vijayakumar, S., Souza, A., Peters, J., Conradt, J., Rutkowski, T., Ijspeert, A., Nakanishi, J., Inoue, M., Shibata, T., Wiryo, A., Itti, L., Amari, S., Schaal, S. Real-Time Statistical Learning for Oculomotor Control and Visuomotor Coordination (Editors: Becker, S. , S. Thrun, K. Obermayer), Sixteenth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), December 2002 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Surface-slant-from-texture discrimination: Effects of slant level and texture type

Rosas, P., Wichmann, F., Wagemans, J.

Journal of Vision, 2(7):300, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Abstract
The problem of surface-slant-from-texture was studied psychophysically by measuring the performances of five human subjects in a slant-discrimination task with a number of different types of textures: uniform lattices, randomly displaced lattices, polka dots, Voronoi tessellations, orthogonal sinusoidal plaid patterns, fractal or 1/f noise, “coherent” noise and a “diffusion-based” texture (leopard skin-like). The results show: (1) Improving performance with larger slants for all textures. (2) A “non-symmetrical” performance around a particular slant characterized by a psychometric function that is steeper in the direction of the more slanted orientation. (3) For sufficiently large slants (66 deg) there are no major differences in performance between any of the different textures. (4) For slants at 26, 37 and 53 degrees, however, there are marked differences between the different textures. (5) The observed differences in performance across textures for slants up to 53 degrees are systematic within subjects, and nearly so across them. This allows a rank-order of textures to be formed according to their “helpfulness” — that is, how easy the discrimination task is when a particular texture is mapped on the surface. Polka dots tended to allow the best slant discrimination performance, noise patterns the worst up to the large slant of 66 degrees at which performance was almost independent of the particular texture chosen. Finally, our large number of 2AFC trials (approximately 2800 trials per texture across subjects) and associated tight confidence intervals may enable us to find out about which statistical properties of the textures could be responsible for surface-slant-from-texture estimation, with the ultimate goal of being able to predict observer performance for any arbitrary texture.

Web DOI [BibTex]

Rosas, P., Wichmann, F., Wagemans, J. Surface-slant-from-texture discrimination: Effects of slant level and texture type Journal of Vision, 2(7):300, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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Modelling Contrast Transfer in Spatial Vision

Wichmann, F.

Journal of Vision, 2(10):7, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Abstract
Much of our information about spatial vision comes from detection experiments involving low-contrast stimuli. Contrast discrimination experiments provide one way to explore the visual system's response to stimuli of higher contrast, the results of which allow different models of contrast processing (e.g. energy versus gain-control models) to be critically assessed (Wichmann & Henning, 1999). Studies of detection and discrimination using pulse train stimuli in noise, on the other hand, make predictions about the number, position and properties of noise sources within the processing stream (Henning, Bird & Wichmann, 2002). Here I report modelling results combining data from both sinusoidal and pulse train experiments in and without noise to arrive at a more tightly constrained model of early spatial vision.

Web DOI [BibTex]

Wichmann, F. Modelling Contrast Transfer in Spatial Vision Journal of Vision, 2(10):7, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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Pulse train detection and discrimination in pink noise

Henning, G., Wichmann, F., Bird, C.

Journal of Vision, 2(7):229, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Abstract
Much of our information about spatial vision comes from detection experiments involving low-contrast stimuli. Contrast discrimination experiments provide one way to explore the visual system's response to stimuli of higher contrast. We explored both detection and contrast discrimination performance with sinusoidal and "pulse-train" (or line) gratings. Both types of grating had a fundamental spatial frequency of 2.09-c/deg but the pulse-train, ideally, contains, in addition to its fundamental component, all the harmonics of the fundamental. Although the 2.09-c/deg pulse-train produced on the display was measured and shown to contain at least 8 harmonics at equal contrast, it was no more detectable than its most detectable component; no benefit from having additional information at the harmonics was measurable. The addition of broadband "pink" noise, designed to equalize the detectability of the components of the pulse train, made it about a factor of four more detectable than any of its components. However, in contrast-discrimination experiments, with an in-phase pedestal or masking grating of the same form and phase as the signal and 15% contrast, the noise did not improve the discrimination performance of the pulse train relative to that of its sinusoidal components. In contrast, a 2.09-c/deg "super train," constructed to have 8 equally detectable harmonics, was a factor of five more detectable than any of its components. We discuss the implications of these observations for models of early vision in particular the implications for possible sources of internal noise.

Web DOI [BibTex]

Henning, G., Wichmann, F., Bird, C. Pulse train detection and discrimination in pink noise Journal of Vision, 2(7):229, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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Phase information in the recognition of natural images

Braun, D., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K.

Perception, 31(ECVP Abstract Supplement):133, 25th European Conference on Visual Perception, August 2002 (poster)

Abstract
Fourier phase plays an important role in determining global image structure. For example, when the phase spectrum of an image of a flower is swapped with that of a tank, we usually perceive a tank, even though the amplitude spectrum is still that of the flower. Similarly, when the phase spectrum of an image is randomly swapped across frequencies, that is its Fourier energy is randomly distributed over the image, the resulting image becomes impossible to recognise. Our goal was to evaluate the effect of phase manipulations in a quantitative manner. Subjects viewed two images of natural scenes, one of which contained an animal (the target) embedded in the background. The spectra of the images were manipulated by adding random phase noise at each frequency. The phase noise was the independent variable, uniformly distributed between 0° and ±180°. Subjects were remarkably resistant to phase noise. Even with ±120° noise, subjects were still 75% correct. The proportion of correct answers closely followed the correlation between original and noise-distorted images. Thus it appears as if it was not the global phase information per se that determines our percept of natural images, but rather the effect of phase on local image features.

Web [BibTex]

Braun, D., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Phase information in the recognition of natural images Perception, 31(ECVP Abstract Supplement):133, 25th European Conference on Visual Perception, August 2002 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Detection and discrimination in pink noise

Wichmann, F., Henning, G.

5, pages: 100, 5. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2002 (poster)

Abstract
Much of our information about early spatial vision comes from detection experiments involving low-contrast stimuli, which are not, perhaps, particularly "natural" stimuli. Contrast discrimination experiments provide one way to explore the visual system's response to stimuli of higher contrast whilst keeping the number of unknown parameters comparatively small. We explored both detection and contrast discrimination performance with sinusoidal and "pulse-train" (or line) gratings. Both types of grating had a fundamental spatial frequency of 2.09-c/deg but the pulse-train, ideally, contains, in addition to its fundamental component, all the harmonics of the fundamental. Although the 2.09-c/deg pulse-train produced on our display was measured using a high-performance digital camera (Photometrics) and shown to contain at least 8 harmonics at equal contrast, it was no more detectable than its most detectable component; no benefit from having additional information at the harmonics was measurable. The addition of broadband 1-D "pink" noise made it about a factor of four more detectable than any of its components. However, in contrast-discrimination experiments, with an in-phase pedestal or masking grating of the same form and phase as the signal and 15% contrast, the noise did not improve the discrimination performance of the pulse train relative to that of its sinusoidal components. We discuss the implications of these observations for models of early vision in particular the implications for possible sources of internal noise.

Web [BibTex]

Wichmann, F., Henning, G. Detection and discrimination in pink noise 5, pages: 100, 5. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2002 (poster)

Web [BibTex]