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61 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2012

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High Gamma-Power Predicts Performance in Brain-Computer Interfacing

Grosse-Wentrup, M., Schölkopf, B.

(3), Max-Planck-Institut für Intelligente Systeme, Tübingen, February 2012 (techreport)

Abstract
Subjects operating a brain-computer interface (BCI) based on sensorimotor rhythms exhibit large variations in performance over the course of an experimental session. Here, we show that high-frequency gamma-oscillations, originating in fronto-parietal networks, predict such variations on a trial-to-trial basis. We interpret this nding as empirical support for an in uence of attentional networks on BCI-performance via modulation of the sensorimotor rhythm.

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2012

Grosse-Wentrup, M., Schölkopf, B. High Gamma-Power Predicts Performance in Brain-Computer Interfacing (3), Max-Planck-Institut für Intelligente Systeme, Tübingen, February 2012 (techreport)

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2010

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Computationally efficient algorithms for statistical image processing: Implementation in R

Langovoy, M., Wittich, O.

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

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

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2010

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

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Fast Convergent Algorithms for Expectation Propagation Approximate Bayesian Inference

Seeger, M., Nickisch, H.

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

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

Web [BibTex]

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

Web [BibTex]

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A PAC-Bayesian Analysis of Graph Clustering and Pairwise Clustering

Seldin, Y.

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

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

PDF Web [BibTex]

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

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Sparse nonnegative matrix approximation: new formulations and algorithms

Tandon, R., Sra, S.

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

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

PDF [BibTex]

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

PDF [BibTex]

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Robust nonparametric detection of objects in noisy images

Langovoy, M., Wittich, O.

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

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

PDF [BibTex]

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

PDF [BibTex]

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

Seeger, M., Nickisch, H.

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

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

Web [BibTex]

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Cooperative Cuts for Image Segmentation

Jegelka, S., Bilmes, J.

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

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

Web [BibTex]

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

Web [BibTex]

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Fast algorithms for total-variationbased optimization

Barbero, A., Sra, S.

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

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

PDF [BibTex]

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

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Gaussian Mixture Modeling with Gaussian Process Latent Variable Models

Nickisch, H., Rasmussen, C.

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

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

Web [BibTex]

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

Web [BibTex]

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Generalized Proximity and Projection with Norms and Mixed-norms

Sra, S.

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

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

PDF [BibTex]

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

PDF [BibTex]

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Cooperative Cuts: Graph Cuts with Submodular Edge Weights

Jegelka, S., Bilmes, J.

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

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

PDF [BibTex]

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

PDF [BibTex]

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Information-theoretic inference of common ancestors

Steudel, B., Ay, N.

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

Web [BibTex]

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

Web [BibTex]

2007

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Bayesian Estimators for Robins-Ritov’s Problem

Harmeling, S., Toussaint, M.

(EDI-INF-RR-1189), School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, October 2007 (techreport)

Abstract
Bayesian or likelihood-based approaches to data analysis became very popular in the field of Machine Learning. However, there exist theoretical results which question the general applicability of such approaches; among those a result by Robins and Ritov which introduce a specific example for which they prove that a likelihood-based estimator will fail (i.e. it does for certain cases not converge to a true parameter estimate, even given infinite data). In this paper we consider various approaches to formulate likelihood-based estimators in this example, basically by considering various extensions of the presumed generative model of the data. We can derive estimators which are very similar to the classical Horvitz-Thompson and which also account for a priori knowledge of an observation probability function.

PDF [BibTex]

2007

Harmeling, S., Toussaint, M. Bayesian Estimators for Robins-Ritov’s Problem (EDI-INF-RR-1189), School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, October 2007 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Learning with Transformation Invariant Kernels

Walder, C., Chapelle, O.

(165), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, September 2007 (techreport)

Abstract
Abstract. This paper considers kernels invariant to translation, rotation and dilation. We show that no non-trivial positive definite (p.d.) kernels exist which are radial and dilation invariant, only conditionally positive definite (c.p.d.) ones. Accordingly, we discuss the c.p.d. case and provide some novel analysis, including an elementary derivation of a c.p.d. representer theorem. On the practical side, we give a support vector machine (s.v.m.) algorithm for arbitrary c.p.d. kernels. For the thin-plate kernel this leads to a classifier with only one parameter (the amount of regularisation), which we demonstrate to be as effective as an s.v.m. with the Gaussian kernel, even though the Gaussian involves a second parameter (the length scale).

PDF [BibTex]

Walder, C., Chapelle, O. Learning with Transformation Invariant Kernels (165), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, September 2007 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Scalable Semidefinite Programming using Convex Perturbations

Kulis, B., Sra, S., Jegelka, S.

(TR-07-47), University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA, September 2007 (techreport)

Abstract
Several important machine learning problems can be modeled and solved via semidefinite programs. Often, researchers invoke off-the-shelf software for the associated optimization, which can be inappropriate for many applications due to computational and storage requirements. In this paper, we introduce the use of convex perturbations for semidefinite programs (SDPs). Using a particular perturbation function, we arrive at an algorithm for SDPs that has several advantages over existing techniques: a) it is simple, requiring only a few lines of MATLAB, b) it is a first-order method which makes it scalable, c) it can easily exploit the structure of a particular SDP to gain efficiency (e.g., when the constraint matrices are low-rank). We demonstrate on several machine learning applications that the proposed algorithm is effective in finding fast approximations to large-scale SDPs.

PDF [BibTex]

Kulis, B., Sra, S., Jegelka, S. Scalable Semidefinite Programming using Convex Perturbations (TR-07-47), University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA, September 2007 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Sparse Multiscale Gaussian Process Regression

Walder, C., Kim, K., Schölkopf, B.

(162), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, August 2007 (techreport)

Abstract
Most existing sparse Gaussian process (g.p.) models seek computational advantages by basing their computations on a set of m basis functions that are the covariance function of the g.p. with one of its two inputs fixed. We generalise this for the case of Gaussian covariance function, by basing our computations on m Gaussian basis functions with arbitrary diagonal covariance matrices (or length scales). For a fixed number of basis functions and any given criteria, this additional flexibility permits approximations no worse and typically better than was previously possible. Although we focus on g.p. regression, the central idea is applicable to all kernel based algorithms, such as the support vector machine. We perform gradient based optimisation of the marginal likelihood, which costs O(m2n) time where n is the number of data points, and compare the method to various other sparse g.p. methods. Our approach outperforms the other methods, particularly for the case of very few basis functions, i.e. a very high sparsity ratio.

PDF [BibTex]

Walder, C., Kim, K., Schölkopf, B. Sparse Multiscale Gaussian Process Regression (162), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, August 2007 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Efficient Subwindow Search for Object Localization

Blaschko, M., Hofmann, T., Lampert, C.

(164), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, August 2007 (techreport)

Abstract
Recent years have seen huge advances in object recognition from images. Recognition rates beyond 95% are the rule rather than the exception on many datasets. However, most state-of-the-art methods can only decide if an object is present or not. They are not able to provide information on the object location or extent within in the image. We report on a simple yet powerful scheme that extends many existing recognition methods to also perform localization of object bounding boxes. This is achieved by maximizing the classification score over all possible subrectangles in the image. Despite the impression that this would be computationally intractable, we show that in many situations efficient algorithms exist which solve a generalized maximum subrectangle problem. We show how our method is applicable to a variety object detection frameworks and demonstrate its performance by applying it to the popular bag of visual words model, achieving competitive results on the PASCAL VOC 2006 dataset.

PDF [BibTex]

Blaschko, M., Hofmann, T., Lampert, C. Efficient Subwindow Search for Object Localization (164), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, August 2007 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Cluster Identification in Nearest-Neighbor Graphs

Maier, M., Hein, M., von Luxburg, U.

(163), Max-Planck-Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, May 2007 (techreport)

Abstract
Assume we are given a sample of points from some underlying distribution which contains several distinct clusters. Our goal is to construct a neighborhood graph on the sample points such that clusters are ``identified‘‘: that is, the subgraph induced by points from the same cluster is connected, while subgraphs corresponding to different clusters are not connected to each other. We derive bounds on the probability that cluster identification is successful, and use them to predict ``optimal‘‘ values of k for the mutual and symmetric k-nearest-neighbor graphs. We point out different properties of the mutual and symmetric nearest-neighbor graphs related to the cluster identification problem.

PDF [BibTex]

Maier, M., Hein, M., von Luxburg, U. Cluster Identification in Nearest-Neighbor Graphs (163), Max-Planck-Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, May 2007 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Exploring model selection techniques for nonlinear dimensionality reduction

Harmeling, S.

(EDI-INF-RR-0960), School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, March 2007 (techreport)

Abstract
Nonlinear dimensionality reduction (NLDR) methods have become useful tools for practitioners who are faced with the analysis of high-dimensional data. Of course, not all NLDR methods are equally applicable to a particular dataset at hand. Thus it would be useful to come up with model selection criteria that help to choose among different NLDR algorithms. This paper explores various approaches to this problem and evaluates them on controlled data sets. Comprehensive experiments will show that model selection scores based on stability are not useful, while scores based on Gaussian processes are helpful for the NLDR problem.

PDF Web [BibTex]

Harmeling, S. Exploring model selection techniques for nonlinear dimensionality reduction (EDI-INF-RR-0960), School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, March 2007 (techreport)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Dirichlet Mixtures of Bayesian Linear Gaussian State-Space Models: a Variational Approach

Chiappa, S., Barber, D.

(161), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, March 2007 (techreport)

Abstract
We describe two related models to cluster multidimensional time-series under the assumption of an underlying linear Gaussian dynamical process. In the first model, times-series are assigned to the same cluster when they show global similarity in their dynamics, while in the second model times-series are assigned to the same cluster when they show simultaneous similarity. Both models are based on Dirichlet Mixtures of Bayesian Linear Gaussian State-Space Models in order to (semi) automatically determine an appropriate number of components in the mixture, and to additionally bias the components to a parsimonious parameterization. The resulting models are formally intractable and to deal with this we describe a deterministic approximation based on a novel implementation of Variational Bayes.

PDF [BibTex]

Chiappa, S., Barber, D. Dirichlet Mixtures of Bayesian Linear Gaussian State-Space Models: a Variational Approach (161), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, March 2007 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Modeling data using directional distributions: Part II

Sra, S., Jain, P., Dhillon, I.

(TR-07-05), University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA, February 2007 (techreport)

Abstract
High-dimensional data is central to most data mining applications, and only recently has it been modeled via directional distributions. In [Banerjee et al., 2003] the authors introduced the use of the von Mises-Fisher (vMF) distribution for modeling high-dimensional directional data, particularly for text and gene expression analysis. The vMF distribution is one of the simplest directional distributions. TheWatson, Bingham, and Fisher-Bingham distributions provide distri- butions with an increasing number of parameters and thereby commensurately increased modeling power. This report provides a followup study to the initial development in [Banerjee et al., 2003] by presenting Expectation Maximization (EM) procedures for estimating parameters of a mixture of Watson (moW) distributions. The numerical challenges associated with parameter estimation for both of these distributions are significantly more difficult than for the vMF distribution. We develop new numerical approximations for estimating the parameters permitting us to model real- life data more accurately. Our experimental results establish that for certain data sets improved modeling power translates into better results.

PDF [BibTex]

Sra, S., Jain, P., Dhillon, I. Modeling data using directional distributions: Part II (TR-07-05), University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA, February 2007 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Automatic 3D Face Reconstruction from Single Images or Video

Breuer, P., Kim, K., Kienzle, W., Blanz, V., Schölkopf, B.

(160), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, February 2007 (techreport)

Abstract
This paper presents a fully automated algorithm for reconstructing a textured 3D model of a face from a single photograph or a raw video stream. The algorithm is based on a combination of Support Vector Machines (SVMs) and a Morphable Model of 3D faces. After SVM face detection, individual facial features are detected using a novel regression-and classification-based approach, and probabilistically plausible configurations of features are selected to produce a list of candidates for several facial feature positions. In the next step, the configurations of feature points are evaluated using a novel criterion that is based on a Morphable Model and a combination of linear projections. Finally, the feature points initialize a model-fitting procedure of the Morphable Model. The result is a high-resolution 3D surface model.

PDF [BibTex]

Breuer, P., Kim, K., Kienzle, W., Blanz, V., Schölkopf, B. Automatic 3D Face Reconstruction from Single Images or Video (160), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, February 2007 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Relative Entropy Policy Search

Peters, J.

CLMC Technical Report: TR-CLMC-2007-2, Computational Learning and Motor Control Lab, Los Angeles, CA, 2007, clmc (techreport)

Abstract
This technical report describes a cute idea of how to create new policy search approaches. It directly relates to the Natural Actor-Critic methods but allows the derivation of one shot solutions. Future work may include the application to interesting problems.

PDF link (url) [BibTex]

Peters, J. Relative Entropy Policy Search CLMC Technical Report: TR-CLMC-2007-2, Computational Learning and Motor Control Lab, Los Angeles, CA, 2007, clmc (techreport)

PDF link (url) [BibTex]

2006

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

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

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

PDF [BibTex]

2006

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

PDF [BibTex]

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Probabilistic inference for solving (PO)MDPs

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

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

PDF [BibTex]

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

PDF [BibTex]

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Minimal Logical Constraint Covering Sets

Sinz, F., Schölkopf, B.

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

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

PDF [BibTex]

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

PDF [BibTex]

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New Methods for the P300 Visual Speller

Biessmann, F.

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

PDF [BibTex]

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

PDF [BibTex]

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Geometric Analysis of Hilbert Schmidt Independence criterion based ICA contrast function

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

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

Web [BibTex]

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

Web [BibTex]

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A tutorial on spectral clustering

von Luxburg, U.

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

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

PDF [BibTex]

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

PDF [BibTex]

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Towards the Inference of Graphs on Ordered Vertexes

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

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

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

PDF [BibTex]

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

PDF [BibTex]

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Nonnegative Matrix Approximation: Algorithms and Applications

Sra, S., Dhillon, I.

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

[BibTex]

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

[BibTex]

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

Zien, A., Ong, C.

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

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

PDF Web [BibTex]

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

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Training a Support Vector Machine in the Primal

Chapelle, O.

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

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

PDF [BibTex]

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

PDF [BibTex]

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Cross-Validation Optimization for Structured Hessian Kernel Methods

Seeger, M., Chapelle, O.

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

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

PDF Web [BibTex]

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

PDF Web [BibTex]

Thumb xl screen shot 2012 06 06 at 11.31.38 am
Implicit Wiener Series, Part II: Regularised estimation

Gehler, P., Franz, M.

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

pdf [BibTex]

2003

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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.

PDF Web [BibTex]

2003

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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Technical report on Separation methods for nonlinear mixtures

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

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

PDF [BibTex]

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

PDF [BibTex]

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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)

PDF [BibTex]

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

PDF [BibTex]

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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)

PDF [BibTex]

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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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.

PDF [BibTex]

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.

PDF [BibTex]

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]

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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]

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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]

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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)

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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)

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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]

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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]