Publications | Empirical Inference - Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

Lopez-Paz, D., Hernandez-Lobato, J., Ghahramani, Z. Gaussian Process Vine Copulas for Multivariate Dependence International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), 2013 (poster)

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Domain Generalization via Invariant Feature Representation

Muandet, K., Balduzzi, D., Schölkopf, B.

30th International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML2013), 2013 (poster)

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Muandet, K., Balduzzi, D., Schölkopf, B. Domain Generalization via Invariant Feature Representation 30th International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML2013), 2013 (poster)

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Analyzing locking of spikes to spatio-temporal patterns in the macaque prefrontal cortex

Safavi, S., Panagiotaropoulos, T., Kapoor, V., Logothetis, N., Besserve, M.

Bernstein Conference, 2013 (poster)

DOI [BibTex]

Safavi, S., Panagiotaropoulos, T., Kapoor, V., Logothetis, N., Besserve, M. Analyzing locking of spikes to spatio-temporal patterns in the macaque prefrontal cortex Bernstein Conference, 2013 (poster)

DOI [BibTex]

One-class Support Measure Machines for Group Anomaly Detection

Muandet, K., Schölkopf, B.

29th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI), 2013 (poster)

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Muandet, K., Schölkopf, B. One-class Support Measure Machines for Group Anomaly Detection 29th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI), 2013 (poster)

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The Randomized Dependence Coefficient

Lopez-Paz, D., Hennig, P., Schölkopf, B.

Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2013 (poster)

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Lopez-Paz, D., Hennig, P., Schölkopf, B. The Randomized Dependence Coefficient Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2013 (poster)

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Characterization of different types of sharp-wave ripple signatures in the CA1 of the macaque hippocampus

Ramirez-Villegas, J., Logothetis, N., Besserve, M.

4th German Neurophysiology PhD Meeting Networks, 2013 (poster)

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Ramirez-Villegas, J., Logothetis, N., Besserve, M. Characterization of different types of sharp-wave ripple signatures in the CA1 of the macaque hippocampus 4th German Neurophysiology PhD Meeting Networks, 2013 (poster)

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Animating Samples from Gaussian Distributions

Hennig, P.

(8), Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen, Germany, 2013 (techreport)

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Hennig, P. Animating Samples from Gaussian Distributions (8), Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen, Germany, 2013 (techreport)

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Maximizing Kepler science return per telemetered pixel: Detailed models of the focal plane in the two-wheel era

Hogg, D. W., Angus, R., Barclay, T., Dawson, R., Fergus, R., Foreman-Mackey, D., Harmeling, S., Hirsch, M., Lang, D., Montet, B. T., Schiminovich, D., Schölkopf, B.

arXiv:1309.0653, 2013 (techreport)

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Hogg, D. W., Angus, R., Barclay, T., Dawson, R., Fergus, R., Foreman-Mackey, D., Harmeling, S., Hirsch, M., Lang, D., Montet, B. T., Schiminovich, D., Schölkopf, B. Maximizing Kepler science return per telemetered pixel: Detailed models of the focal plane in the two-wheel era arXiv:1309.0653, 2013 (techreport)

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Maximizing Kepler science return per telemetered pixel: Searching the habitable zones of the brightest stars

Montet, B. T., Angus, R., Barclay, T., Dawson, R., Fergus, R., Foreman-Mackey, D., Harmeling, S., Hirsch, M., Hogg, D. W., Lang, D., Schiminovich, D., Schölkopf, B.

arXiv:1309.0654, 2013 (techreport)

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Montet, B. T., Angus, R., Barclay, T., Dawson, R., Fergus, R., Foreman-Mackey, D., Harmeling, S., Hirsch, M., Hogg, D. W., Lang, D., Schiminovich, D., Schölkopf, B. Maximizing Kepler science return per telemetered pixel: Searching the habitable zones of the brightest stars arXiv:1309.0654, 2013 (techreport)

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2011

Spatiotemporal mapping of rhythmic activity in the inferior convexity of the macaque prefrontal cortex

Panagiotaropoulos, T., Besserve, M., Crocker, B., Kapoor, V., Tolias, A., Panzeri, S., Logothetis, N.

41(239.15), 41st Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), November 2011 (poster)

Abstract

The inferior convexity of the macaque prefrontal cortex (icPFC) is known to be involved in higher order processing of sensory information mediating stimulus selection, attention and working memory. Until now, the vast majority of electrophysiological investigations of the icPFC employed single electrode recordings. As a result, relatively little is known about the spatiotemporal structure of neuronal activity in this cortical area. Here we study in detail the spatiotemporal properties of local field potentials (LFP's) in the icPFC using multi electrode recordings during anesthesia. We computed the LFP-LFP coherence as a function of frequency for thousands of pairs of simultaneously recorded sites anterior to the arcuate and inferior to the principal sulcus. We observed two distinct peaks of coherent oscillatory activity between approximately 4-10 and 15-25 Hz. We then quantified the instantaneous phase of these frequency bands using the Hilbert transform and found robust phase gradients across recording sites. The dependency of the phase on the spatial location reflects the existence of traveling waves of electrical activity in the icPFC. The dominant axis of these traveling waves roughly followed the ventral-dorsal plane. Preliminary results show that repeated visual stimulation with a 10s movie had no dramatic effect on the spatial structure of the traveling waves. Traveling waves of electrical activity in the icPFC could reflect highly organized cortical processing in this area of prefrontal cortex.

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2011

Panagiotaropoulos, T., Besserve, M., Crocker, B., Kapoor, V., Tolias, A., Panzeri, S., Logothetis, N. Spatiotemporal mapping of rhythmic activity in the inferior convexity of the macaque prefrontal cortex 41(239.15), 41st Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), November 2011 (poster)

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Evaluation and Optimization of MR-Based Attenuation Correction Methods in Combined Brain PET/MR

Mantlik, F., Hofmann, M., Bezrukov, I., Schmidt, H., Kolb, A., Beyer, T., Reimold, M., Schölkopf, B., Pichler, B.

2011(MIC18.M-96), 2011 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conference (NSS-MIC), October 2011 (poster)

Abstract

Combined PET/MR provides simultaneous molecular and functional information in an anatomical context with unique soft tissue contrast. However, PET/MR does not support direct derivation of attenuation maps of objects and tissues within the measured PET field-of-view. Valid attenuation maps are required for quantitative PET imaging, specifically for scientific brain studies. Therefore, several methods have been proposed for MR-based attenuation correction (MR-AC). Last year, we performed an evaluation of different MR-AC methods, including simple MR thresholding, atlas- and machine learning-based MR-AC. CT-based AC served as gold standard reference. RoIs from 2 anatomic brain atlases with different levels of detail were used for evaluation of correction accuracy. We now extend our evaluation of different MR-AC methods by using an enlarged dataset of 23 patients from the integrated BrainPET/MR (Siemens Healthcare). Further, we analyze options for improving the MR-AC performance in terms of speed and accuracy. Finally, we assess the impact of ignoring BrainPET positioning aids during the course of MR-AC. This extended study confirms the overall prediction accuracy evaluation results of the first evaluation in a larger patient population. Removing datasets affected by metal artifacts from the Atlas-Patch database helped to improve prediction accuracy, although the size of the database was reduced by one half. Significant improvement in prediction speed can be gained at a cost of only slightly reduced accuracy, while further optimizations are still possible.

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Mantlik, F., Hofmann, M., Bezrukov, I., Schmidt, H., Kolb, A., Beyer, T., Reimold, M., Schölkopf, B., Pichler, B. Evaluation and Optimization of MR-Based Attenuation Correction Methods in Combined Brain PET/MR 2011(MIC18.M-96), 2011 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conference (NSS-MIC), October 2011 (poster)

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Atlas- and Pattern Recognition Based Attenuation Correction on Simultaneous Whole-Body PET/MR

Bezrukov, I., Schmidt, H., Mantlik, F., Schwenzer, N., Hofmann, M., Schölkopf, B., Pichler, B.

2011(MIC18.M-116), 2011 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conference (NSS-MIC), October 2011 (poster)

Abstract

With the recent availability of clinical whole-body PET/MRI it is possible to evaluate and further develop MR-based attenuation correction methods using simultaneously acquired PET/MR data. We present first results for MRAC on patient data acquired on a fully integrated whole-body PET/MRI (Biograph mMR, Siemens) using our method that applies atlas registration and pattern recognition (ATPR) and compare them to the segmentation-based (SEG) method provided by the manufacturer. The ATPR method makes use of a database of previously aligned pairs of MR-CT volumes to predict attenuation values on a continuous scale. The robustness of the method in presence of MR artifacts was improved by location and size based detection. Lesion to liver and lesion to blood ratios (LLR and LBR) were compared for both methods on 29 iso-contour ROIs in 4 patients. ATPR showed >20% higher LBR and LLR for ROIs in and >7% near osseous tissue. For ROIs in soft tissue, both methods yielded similar ratios with max. differences <6% . For ROIs located within metal artifacts in the MR image, ATPR showed >190% higher LLR and LBR than SEG, where ratios <0.1 occured. For lesions in the neighborhood of artifacts, both ratios were >15% higher for ATPR. If artifacts in MR volumes caused by metal implants are not accounted for in the computation of attenuation maps, they can lead to a strong decrease of lesion to background ratios, even to disappearance of hot spots. Metal implants are likely to occur in the patient collective receiving combined PET/MR scans, of our first 10 patients, 3 had metal implants. Our method is currently able to account for artifacts in the pelvis caused by prostheses. The ability of the ATPR method to account for bone leads to a significant increase of LLR and LBR in osseous tissue, which supports our previous evaluations with combined PET/CT and PET/MR data. For lesions within soft tissue, lesion to background ratios of ATPR and SEG were comparable.

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Bezrukov, I., Schmidt, H., Mantlik, F., Schwenzer, N., Hofmann, M., Schölkopf, B., Pichler, B. Atlas- and Pattern Recognition Based Attenuation Correction on Simultaneous Whole-Body PET/MR 2011(MIC18.M-116), 2011 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conference (NSS-MIC), October 2011 (poster)

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Retrospective blind motion correction of MR images

Loktyushin, A., Nickisch, H., Pohmann, R.

Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine, 24(Supplement 1):498, 28th Annual Scientific Meeting ESMRMB, October 2011 (poster)

Abstract

We present a retrospective method, which significantly reduces ghosting and blurring artifacts due to subject motion. No modifications to the sequence (as in [2, 3]), or the use of additional equipment (as in [1]) are required. Our method iteratively searches for the transformation, that applied to the lines in k-space -- yields the sparsest Laplacian filter output in the spatial domain.

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Loktyushin, A., Nickisch, H., Pohmann, R. Retrospective blind motion correction of MR images Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine, 24(Supplement 1):498, 28th Annual Scientific Meeting ESMRMB, October 2011 (poster)

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Model based reconstruction for GRE EPI

Blecher, W., Pohmann, R., Schölkopf, B., Seeger, M.

Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine, 24(Supplement 1):493-494, 28th Annual Scientific Meeting ESMRMB, October 2011 (poster)

Abstract

Model based nonlinear image reconstruction methods for MRI [3] are at the heart of modern reconstruction techniques (e.g.compressed sensing [6]). In general, models are expressed as a matrix equation where y and u are column vectors of k-space and image data, X model matrix and e independent noise. However, solving the corresponding linear system is not tractable. Therefore fast nonlinear algorithms that minimize a function wrt.the unknown image are the method of choice: In this work a model for gradient echo EPI, is proposed that incorporates N/2 Ghost correction and correction for field inhomogeneities. In addition to reconstruction from full data, the model allows for sparse reconstruction, joint estimation of image, field-, and relaxation-map (like [5,8] for spiral imaging), and improved N/2 ghost correction.

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Blecher, W., Pohmann, R., Schölkopf, B., Seeger, M. Model based reconstruction for GRE EPI Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine, 24(Supplement 1):493-494, 28th Annual Scientific Meeting ESMRMB, October 2011 (poster)

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Simultaneous multimodal imaging of patients with bronchial carcinoma in a whole body MR/PET system

Brendle, C., Sauter, A., Schmidt, H., Schraml, C., Bezrukov, I., Martirosian, P., Hetzel, J., Müller, M., Claussen, C., Schwenzer, N., Pfannenberg, C.

Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine, 24(Supplement 1):141, 28th annual scientific meeting of the European Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology (ESMRB), October 2011 (poster)

Abstract

Purpose/Introduction: Lung cancer is among the most frequent cancers (1). Exact determination of tumour extent and viability is crucial for adequate therapy guidance. [18F]-FDG-PET allows accurate staging and the evaluation of therapy response based on glucose metabolism. Diffusion weighted MRI (DWI) is another promising tool for the evaluation of tumour viability (2,3). The aim of the study was the simultaneous PET-MR acquisition in lung cancer patients and correlation of PET and MR data. Subjects and Methods: Seven patients (age 38-73 years, mean 61 years) with highly suspected or known bronchial carcinoma were examined. First, a [18F]-FDG-PET/CT was performed (injected dose: 332-380 MBq). Subsequently, patients were examined at the whole-body MR/PET (Siemens Biograph mMR). The MRI is a modified 3T Verio whole body system with a magnet bore of 60 cm (max. amplitude gradients 45 mT/m, max. slew rate 200 T/m/s). Concerning the PET, the whole-body MR/PET system comprises 56 detector cassettes with a 59.4 cm transaxial and 25.8 cm axial FoV. The following parameters for PET acquisition were applied: 2 bed positions, 6 min/bed with an average uptake time of 124 min after injection (range: 110-143 min). The attenuation correction of PET data was conducted with a segmentation-based method provided by the manufacturer. Acquired PET data were reconstructed with an iterative 3D OSEM algorithm using 3 iterations and 21 subsets, Gaussian filter of 3 mm. DWI MR images were recorded simultaneously for each bed using two b-values (0/800 s/mm2). SUVmax and ADCmin were assessed in a ROI analysis. The following ratios were calculated: SUVmax(tumor)/SUVmean(liver) and ADCmin(tumor)/ADCmean(muscle). Correlation between SUV and ADC was analyzed (Pearson’s correlation). Results: Diagnostic scans could be obtained in all patients with good tumour delineation. The spatial matching of PET and DWI data was very exact. Most tumours showed a pronounced FDG-uptake in combination with decreased ADC values. Significant correlation was found between SUV and ADC ratios (r = -0.87, p = 0.0118). Discussion/Conclusion: Simultaneous MR/PET imaging of lung cancer is feasible. The whole-body MR/PET system can provide complementary information regarding tumour viability and cellularity which could facilitate a more profound tumour characterization. Further studies have to be done to evaluate the importance of these parameters for therapy decisions and monitoring

Web DOI [BibTex]

Brendle, C., Sauter, A., Schmidt, H., Schraml, C., Bezrukov, I., Martirosian, P., Hetzel, J., Müller, M., Claussen, C., Schwenzer, N., Pfannenberg, C. Simultaneous multimodal imaging of patients with bronchial carcinoma in a whole body MR/PET system Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine, 24(Supplement 1):141, 28th annual scientific meeting of the European Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology (ESMRB), October 2011 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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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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.

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

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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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Support Vector Machines for finding deletions and short insertions using paired-end short reads

Grimm, D., Hagmann, J., König, D., Weigel, D., Borgwardt, KM.

International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB), 2011 (poster)

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Grimm, D., Hagmann, J., König, D., Weigel, D., Borgwardt, KM. Support Vector Machines for finding deletions and short insertions using paired-end short reads International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB), 2011 (poster)

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Expectation Propagation for the Estimation of Conditional Bivariate Copulas

Hernandez-Lobato, J., Lopez-Paz, D., Gharhamani, Z.

2011 (poster)

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Hernandez-Lobato, J., Lopez-Paz, D., Gharhamani, Z. Expectation Propagation for the Estimation of Conditional Bivariate Copulas 2011 (poster)

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Statistical estimation for optimization problems on graphs

Langovoy, M., Sra, S.

Empirical Inference Symposium, 2011 (poster)

[BibTex]

Langovoy, M., Sra, S. Statistical estimation for optimization problems on graphs Empirical Inference Symposium, 2011 (poster)

[BibTex]

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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Transfer Learning with Copulas

Lopez-Paz, D., Hernandez-Lobato, J.

Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2011 (poster)

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Lopez-Paz, D., Hernandez-Lobato, J. Transfer Learning with Copulas Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2011 (poster)

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2003

Natural Actor-Critic

Peters, J., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S.

NIPS Workshop " Planning for the Real World: The promises and challenges of dealing with uncertainty", December 2003 (poster)

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2003

Peters, J., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S. Natural Actor-Critic NIPS Workshop " Planning for the Real World: The promises and challenges of dealing with uncertainty", December 2003 (poster)

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Support Vector Channel Selection in BCI

Lal, T., Schröder, M., Hinterberger, T., Weston, J., Bogdan, M., Birbaumer, N., Schölkopf, B.

(120), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Germany, December 2003 (techreport)

Abstract

Designing a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) system one can choose from a variety of features that may be useful for classifying brain activity during a mental task. For the special case of classifying EEG signals we propose the usage of the state of the art feature selection algorithms Recursive Feature Elimination [3] and Zero-Norm Optimization [13] which are based on the training of Support Vector Machines (SVM) [11]. These algorithms can provide more accurate solutions than standard filter methods for feature selection [14]. We adapt the methods for the purpose of selecting EEG channels. For a motor imagery paradigm we show that the number of used channels can be reduced significantly without increasing the classification error. The resulting best channels agree well with the expected underlying cortical activity patterns during the mental tasks. Furthermore we show how time dependent task specific information can be visualized.

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Lal, T., Schröder, M., Hinterberger, T., Weston, J., Bogdan, M., Birbaumer, N., Schölkopf, B. Support Vector Channel Selection in BCI (120), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Germany, December 2003 (techreport)

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Texture and haptic cues in slant discrimination: Measuring the effect of texture type on cue combination

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

Journal of Vision, 3(12):26, 2003 Fall Vision Meeting of the Optical Society of America, December 2003 (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 influence of each cue in such average depends on the reliability of the source of information. (Young, Landy, & Maloney, 1993; Ernst & Banks, 2002.) In particular, Ernst & Banks (2002) formulate the combination performed by the human brain as that of the minimum variance unbiased estimator that can be constructed from the available cues. Using slant discrimination and slant judgment via probe adjustment as tasks, we have observed systematic differences in performance of human observers when a number of different types of textures were used as cue to slant (Rosas, Wichmann & Wagemans, 2003). 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. We have combined these texture types with object motion but the obtained results are difficult to reconcile with the unbiased minimum variance estimator model (Rosas & Wagemans, 2003). 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, & Landy (2002) have shown that while for between-modality combination the human visual system has access to the single-cue information, for within-modality combination (visual cues: disparity and texture) the single-cue information is lost, suggesting a coupling between these cues. Then, in the present study we combine the different texture types with haptic information in a slant discrimination task, to test whether in the between-modality condition the texture cue and the haptic cue to slant are combined as predicted by an unbiased, minimum variance estimator model.

Web DOI [BibTex]

Rosas, P., Wichmann, F., Ernst, M., Wagemans, J. Texture and haptic cues in slant discrimination: Measuring the effect of texture type on cue combination Journal of Vision, 3(12):26, 2003 Fall Vision Meeting of the Optical Society of America, December 2003 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

Sparse Gaussian Process Tooblox - Demonstration

Csato, L.

16, December 2003 (poster)

PDF PostScript Web [BibTex]

Csato, L. Sparse Gaussian Process Tooblox - Demonstration 16, December 2003 (poster)

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Technical report on Separation methods for nonlinear mixtures

Jutten, C., Karhunen, J., Almeida, L., Harmeling, S.

(D29), EU-Project BLISS, October 2003 (techreport)

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Jutten, C., Karhunen, J., Almeida, L., Harmeling, S. Technical report on Separation methods for nonlinear mixtures (D29), EU-Project BLISS, October 2003 (techreport)

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Image Reconstruction by Linear Programming

Tsuda, K., Rätsch, G.

(118), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, October 2003 (techreport)

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Tsuda, K., Rätsch, G. Image Reconstruction by Linear Programming (118), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, October 2003 (techreport)

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Technical report on implementation of linear methods and validation on acoustic sources

Harmeling, S., Bünau, P., Ziehe, A., Pham, D.

EU-Project BLISS, September 2003 (techreport)

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Harmeling, S., Bünau, P., Ziehe, A., Pham, D. Technical report on implementation of linear methods and validation on acoustic sources EU-Project BLISS, September 2003 (techreport)

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On optimization, parallelization and convergence of the Expectation-Maximization algorithm for finite mixtures of Bernoulli distributions.

Erhan, D.

Helsinki University of Technology, Helsinki, Finland, August 2003 (techreport)

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Erhan, D. On optimization, parallelization and convergence of the Expectation-Maximization algorithm for finite mixtures of Bernoulli distributions. Helsinki University of Technology, Helsinki, Finland, August 2003 (techreport)

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Ranking on Data Manifolds

Zhou, D., Weston, J., Gretton, A., Bousquet, O., Schölkopf, B.

(113), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany, June 2003 (techreport)

Abstract

The Google search engine has had a huge success with its PageRank web page ranking algorithm, which exploits global, rather than local, hyperlink structure of the World Wide Web using random walk. This algorithm can only be used for graph data, however. Here we propose a simple universal ranking algorithm for vectorial data, based on the exploration of the intrinsic global geometric structure revealed by a huge amount of data. Experimental results from image and text to bioinformatics illustrates the validity of our algorithm.

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Zhou, D., Weston, J., Gretton, A., Bousquet, O., Schölkopf, B. Ranking on Data Manifolds (113), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany, June 2003 (techreport)

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Kernel Hebbian Algorithm for Iterative Kernel Principal Component Analysis

Kim, K., Franz, M., Schölkopf, B.

(109), MPI f. biologische Kybernetik, Tuebingen, June 2003 (techreport)

Abstract

A new method for performing a kernel principal component analysis is proposed. By kernelizing the generalized Hebbian algorithm, one can iteratively estimate the principal components in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space with only linear order memory complexity. The derivation of the method, a convergence proof, and preliminary applications in image hyperresolution are presented. In addition, we discuss the extension of the method to the online learning of kernel principal components.

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Kim, K., Franz, M., Schölkopf, B. Kernel Hebbian Algorithm for Iterative Kernel Principal Component Analysis (109), MPI f. biologische Kybernetik, Tuebingen, June 2003 (techreport)

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Learning with Local and Global Consistency

Zhou, D., Bousquet, O., Lal, T., Weston, J., Schölkopf, B.

(112), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Germany, June 2003 (techreport)

Abstract

We consider the learning problem in the transductive setting. Given a set of points of which only some are labeled, the goal is to predict the label of the unlabeled points. A principled clue to solve such a learning problem is the consistency assumption that a classifying function should be sufficiently smooth with respect to the structure revealed by these known labeled and unlabeled points. We present a simple algorithm to obtain such a smooth solution. Our method yields encouraging experimental results on a number of classification problems and demonstrates effective use of unlabeled data.

[BibTex]

Zhou, D., Bousquet, O., Lal, T., Weston, J., Schölkopf, B. Learning with Local and Global Consistency (112), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Germany, June 2003 (techreport)

[BibTex]

The Metric Nearness Problem with Applications

Dhillon, I., Sra, S., Tropp, J.

Univ. of Texas at Austin, June 2003 (techreport)

GZIP [BibTex]

Dhillon, I., Sra, S., Tropp, J. The Metric Nearness Problem with Applications Univ. of Texas at Austin, June 2003 (techreport)

GZIP [BibTex]

Implicit Wiener Series

Franz, M., Schölkopf, B.

(114), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, June 2003 (techreport)

Abstract

The Wiener series is one of the standard methods to systematically characterize the nonlinearity of a neural system. The classical estimation method of the expansion coefficients via cross-correlation suffers from severe problems that prevent its application to high-dimensional and strongly nonlinear systems. We propose a new estimation method based on regression in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space that overcomes these problems. Numerical experiments show performance advantages in terms of convergence, interpretability and system size that can be handled.

PDF [BibTex]

Franz, M., Schölkopf, B. Implicit Wiener Series (114), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, June 2003 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

Machine Learning approaches to protein ranking: discriminative, semi-supervised, scalable algorithms

Weston, J., Leslie, C., Elisseeff, A., Noble, W.

(111), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, June 2003 (techreport)

Abstract

A key tool in protein function discovery is the ability to rank databases of proteins given a query amino acid sequence. The most successful method so far is a web-based tool called PSI-BLAST which uses heuristic alignment of a profile built using the large unlabeled database. It has been shown that such use of global information via an unlabeled data improves over a local measure derived from a basic pairwise alignment such as performed by PSI-BLAST's predecessor, BLAST. In this article we look at ways of leveraging techniques from the field of machine learning for the problem of ranking. We show how clustering and semi-supervised learning techniques, which aim to capture global structure in data, can significantly improve over PSI-BLAST.

PDF [BibTex]

Weston, J., Leslie, C., Elisseeff, A., Noble, W. Machine Learning approaches to protein ranking: discriminative, semi-supervised, scalable algorithms (111), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, June 2003 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

The Geometry Of Kernel Canonical Correlation Analysis

Kuss, M., Graepel, T.

(108), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, May 2003 (techreport)

Abstract

Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) is a classical multivariate method concerned with describing linear dependencies between sets of variables. After a short exposition of the linear sample CCA problem and its analytical solution, the article proceeds with a detailed characterization of its geometry. Projection operators are used to illustrate the relations between canonical vectors and variates. The article then addresses the problem of CCA between spaces spanned by objects mapped into kernel feature spaces. An exact solution for this kernel canonical correlation (KCCA) problem is derived from a geometric point of view. It shows that the expansion coefficients of the canonical vectors in their respective feature space can be found by linear CCA in the basis induced by kernel principal component analysis. The effect of mappings into higher dimensional feature spaces is considered critically since it simplifies the CCA problem in general. Then two regularized variants of KCCA are discussed. Relations to other methods are illustrated, e.g., multicategory kernel Fisher discriminant analysis, kernel principal component regression and possible applications thereof in blind source separation.

PDF [BibTex]

Kuss, M., Graepel, T. The Geometry Of Kernel Canonical Correlation Analysis (108), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, May 2003 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

A unifying computational framework for optimization and dynamic systemsapproaches to motor control

Mohajerian, P., Peters, J., Ijspeert, A., Schaal, S.

10th Joint Symposium on Neural Computation (JSNC 2003), 10, pages: 1, May 2003 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

Mohajerian, P., Peters, J., Ijspeert, A., Schaal, S. A unifying computational framework for optimization and dynamic systemsapproaches to motor control 10th Joint Symposium on Neural Computation (JSNC 2003), 10, pages: 1, May 2003 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

The Kernel Mutual Information

Gretton, A., Herbrich, R., Smola, A.

Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, April 2003 (techreport)

Abstract

We introduce two new functions, the kernel covariance (KC) and the kernel mutual information (KMI), to measure the degree of independence of several continuous random variables. The former is guaranteed to be zero if and only if the random variables are pairwise independent; the latter shares this property, and is in addition an approximate upper bound on the mutual information, as measured near independence, and is based on a kernel density estimate. We show that Bach and Jordan‘s kernel generalised variance (KGV) is also an upper bound on the same kernel density estimate, but is looser. Finally, we suggest that the addition of a regularising term in the KGV causes it to approach the KMI, which motivates the introduction of this regularisation. The performance of the KC and KMI is verified in the context of instantaneous independent component analysis (ICA), by recovering both artificial and real (musical) signals following linear mixing.

PostScript [BibTex]

Gretton, A., Herbrich, R., Smola, A. The Kernel Mutual Information Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, April 2003 (techreport)

PostScript [BibTex]

A Unifying Computational Framework for Optimization and Dynamic Systems Approaches to Motor Control

Mohajerian, P., Peters, J., Ijspeert, A., Schaal, S.

13th Annual Neural Control of Movement Meeting 2003, 13, pages: 1, April 2003 (poster)

[BibTex]

Mohajerian, P., Peters, J., Ijspeert, A., Schaal, S. A Unifying Computational Framework for Optimization and Dynamic Systems Approaches to Motor Control 13th Annual Neural Control of Movement Meeting 2003, 13, pages: 1, April 2003 (poster)

[BibTex]

Phase Information and the Recognition of Natural Images

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

6, pages: 138, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F.A. Wichmann), 6. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2003 (poster)

Abstract

Fourier phase plays an important role in determining image structure. For example, when the phase spectrum of an image showing a ower is swapped with the phase spectrum of an image showing a tank, then we will usually perceive a tank in the resulting image, even though the amplitude spectrum is still that of the ower. Also, when the phases of an image are randomly swapped across frequencies, the resulting image becomes impossible to recognize. Our goal was to evaluate the eect of phase manipulations in a more quantitative manner. On each trial subjects viewed two images of natural scenes. The subject had to indicate which one of the two images contained an animal. The spectra of the images were manipulated by adding random phase noise at each frequency. The phase noise was uniformly distributed in the interval [;+], where was varied between 0 degree and 180 degrees. Image pairs were displayed for 100 msec. Subjects were remarkably resistant to the addition of phase noise. Even with [120; 120] degree noise, subjects still were at a level of 75% correct. The introduction of phase noise leads to a reduction of image contrast. Subjects were slightly better than a simple prediction based on this contrast reduction. However, when contrast response functions were measured in the same experimental paradigm, we found that performance in the phase noise experiment was signicantly lower than that predicted by the corresponding contrast reduction.

Web [BibTex]

Braun, D., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Phase Information and the Recognition of Natural Images 6, pages: 138, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F.A. Wichmann), 6. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2003 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Expectation Maximization for Clustering on Hyperspheres

Banerjee, A., Dhillon, I., Ghosh, J., Sra, S.

Univ. of Texas at Austin, February 2003 (techreport)

GZIP [BibTex]

Banerjee, A., Dhillon, I., Ghosh, J., Sra, S. Expectation Maximization for Clustering on Hyperspheres Univ. of Texas at Austin, February 2003 (techreport)

GZIP [BibTex]

Constraints measures and reproduction of style in robot imitation learning

Bakir, GH., Ilg, W., Franz, MO., Giese, M.

6, pages: 70, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F.A. Wichmann), 6. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2003 (poster)

Abstract

Imitation learning is frequently discussed as a method for generating complex behaviors in robots by imitating human actors. The kinematic and the dynamic properties of humans and robots are typically quite dierent, however. For this reason observed human trajectories cannot be directly transferred to robots, even if their geometry is humanoid. Instead the human trajectory must be approximated by trajectories that can be realized by the robot. During this approximation deviations from the human trajectory may arise that change the style of the executed movement. Alternatively, the style of the movement might be well reproduced, but the imitated trajectory might be suboptimal with respect to dierent constraint measures from robotics control, leading to non-robust behavior. Goal of the presented work is to quantify this trade-o between \imitation quality" and constraint compatibility for the imitation of complex writing movements. In our experiment, we used trajectory data from human writing movements (see the abstract of Ilg et al. in this volume). The human trajectories were mapped onto robot trajectories by minimizing an error measure that integrates constraints that are important for the imitation of movement style and a regularizing constraint that ensures smooth joint trajectories with low velocities. In a rst experiment, both the end-eector position and the shoulder angle of the robot were optimized in order to achieve good imitation together with accurate control of the end-eector position. In a second experiment only the end-eector trajectory was imitated whereas the motion of the elbow joint was determined using the optimal inverse kinematic solution for the robot. For both conditions dierent constraint measures (dexterity and relative jointlimit distances) and a measure for imitation quality were assessed. By controling the weight of the regularization term we can vary continuously between robot behavior optimizing imitation quality, and behavior minimizing joint velocities.

PDF Web [BibTex]

Bakir, GH., Ilg, W., Franz, MO., Giese, M. Constraints measures and reproduction of style in robot imitation learning 6, pages: 70, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F.A. Wichmann), 6. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2003 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

Study of Human Classification using Psychophysics and Machine Learning

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

6, pages: 149, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F.A. Wichmann), 6. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), Febuary 2003 (poster)

Abstract

We attempt to reach a better understanding of classication in humans using both psychophysical and machine learning techniques. In our psychophysical paradigm the stimuli presented to the human subjects are modied using machine learning algorithms according to their responses. Frontal views of human faces taken from a processed version of the MPI face database are employed for a gender classication task. The processing assures that all heads have same mean intensity, same pixel-surface area and are centered. This processing stage is followed by a smoothing of the database in order to eliminate, as much as possible, scanning artifacts. Principal Component Analysis is used to obtain a low-dimensional representation of the faces in the database. A subject is asked to classify the faces and experimental parameters such as class (i.e. female/male), condence ratings and reaction times are recorded. A mean classication error of 14.5% is measured and, on average, 0.5 males are classied as females and 21.3females as males. The mean reaction time for the correctly classied faces is 1229 +- 252 [ms] whereas the incorrectly classied faces have a mean reaction time of 1769 +- 304 [ms] showing that the reaction times increase with the subject's classi- cation error. Reaction times are also shown to decrease with increasing condence, both for the correct and incorrect classications. Classication errors, reaction times and condence ratings are then correlated to concepts of machine learning such as separating hyperplane obtained when considering Support Vector Machines, Relevance Vector Machines, boosted Prototype and K-means Learners. Elements near the separating hyperplane are found to be classied with more errors than those away from it. In addition, the subject's condence increases when moving away from the hyperplane. A preliminary analysis on the available small number of subjects indicates that K-means classication seems to re ect the subject's classication behavior best. The above learnersare then used to generate \special" elements, or representations, of the low-dimensional database according to the labels given by the subject. A memory experiment follows where the representations are shown together with faces seen or unseen during the classication experiment. This experiment aims to assess the representations by investigating whether some representations, or special elements, are classied as \seen before" despite that they never appeared in the classication experiment, possibly hinting at their use during human classication.

PDF Web [BibTex]

Graf, A., Wichmann, F., Bülthoff, H., Schölkopf, B. Study of Human Classification using Psychophysics and Machine Learning 6, pages: 149, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F.A. Wichmann), 6. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), Febuary 2003 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

A Representation of Complex Movement Sequences Based on Hierarchical Spatio-Temporal Correspondence for Imitation Learning in Robotics

Ilg, W., Bakir, GH., Franz, MO., Giese, M.

6, pages: 74, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F.A. Wichmann), 6. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2003 (poster)

Abstract

Imitation learning of complex movements has become a popular topic in neuroscience, as well as in robotics. A number of conceptual as well as practical problems are still unsolved. One example is the determination of the aspects of movements which are relevant for imitation. Problems concerning the movement representation are twofold: (1) The movement characteristics of observed movements have to be transferred from the perceptual level to the level of generated actions. (2) Continuous spaces of movements with variable styles have to be approximated based on a limited number of learned example sequences. Therefore, one has to use representation with a high generalisation capability. We present methods for the representation of complex movement sequences that addresses these questions in the context of the imitation learning of writing movements using a robot arm with human-like geometry. For the transfer of complex movements from perception to action we exploit a learning-based method that represents complex action sequences by linear combination of prototypical examples (Ilg and Giese, BMCV 2002). The method of hierarchical spatio-temporal morphable models (HSTMM) decomposes action sequences automatically into movement primitives. These primitives are modeled by linear combinations of a small number of learned example trajectories. The learned spatio-temporal models are suitable for the analysis and synthesis of long action sequences, which consist of movement primitives with varying style parameters. The proposed method is illustrated by imitation learning of complex writing movements. Human trajectories were recorded using a commercial motion capture system (VICON). In the rst step the recorded writing sequences are decomposed into movement primitives. These movement primitives can be analyzed and changed in style by dening linear combinations of prototypes with dierent linear weight combinations. Our system can imitate writing movements of dierent actors, synthesize new writing styles and can even exaggerate the writing movements of individual actors. Words and writing movements of the robot look very natural, and closely match the natural styles. These preliminary results makes the proposed method promising for further applications in learning-based robotics. In this poster we focus on the acquisition of the movement representation (identication and segmentation of movement primitives, generation of new writing styles by spatio-temporal morphing). The transfer of the generated writing movements to the robot considering the given kinematic and dynamic constraints is discussed in Bakir et al (this volume).

PDF Web [BibTex]

Ilg, W., Bakir, GH., Franz, MO., Giese, M. A Representation of Complex Movement Sequences Based on Hierarchical Spatio-Temporal Correspondence for Imitation Learning in Robotics 6, pages: 74, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F.A. Wichmann), 6. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2003 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

Modeling Data using Directional Distributions

Dhillon, I., Sra, S.

Univ. of Texas at Austin, January 2003 (techreport)

GZIP [BibTex]

Dhillon, I., Sra, S. Modeling Data using Directional Distributions Univ. of Texas at Austin, January 2003 (techreport)

GZIP [BibTex]

A Note on Parameter Tuning for On-Line Shifting Algorithms

Bousquet, O.

Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, 2003 (techreport)

Abstract

In this short note, building on ideas of M. Herbster [2] we propose a method for automatically tuning the parameter of the FIXED-SHARE algorithm proposed by Herbster and Warmuth [3] in the context of on-line learning with shifting experts. We show that this can be done with a memory requirement of $O(nT)$ and that the additional loss incurred by the tuning is the same as the loss incurred for estimating the parameter of a Bernoulli random variable.

PDF PostScript [BibTex]

Bousquet, O. A Note on Parameter Tuning for On-Line Shifting Algorithms Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, 2003 (techreport)

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