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384 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2019

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Active Probabilistic Inference on Matrices for Pre-Conditioning in Stochastic Optimization

de Roos, F., Hennig, P.

Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS), 89, pages: 1448-1457, (Editors: Kamalika Chaudhuri and Masashi Sugiyama), PMLR, April 2019 (conference)

Abstract
Pre-conditioning is a well-known concept that can significantly improve the convergence of optimization algorithms. For noise-free problems, where good pre-conditioners are not known a priori, iterative linear algebra methods offer one way to efficiently construct them. For the stochastic optimization problems that dominate contemporary machine learning, however, this approach is not readily available. We propose an iterative algorithm inspired by classic iterative linear solvers that uses a probabilistic model to actively infer a pre-conditioner in situations where Hessian-projections can only be constructed with strong Gaussian noise. The algorithm is empirically demonstrated to efficiently construct effective pre-conditioners for stochastic gradient descent and its variants. Experiments on problems of comparably low dimensionality show improved convergence. In very high-dimensional problems, such as those encountered in deep learning, the pre-conditioner effectively becomes an automatic learning-rate adaptation scheme, which we also empirically show to work well.

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PDF link (url) [BibTex]

2019

pn ei de Roos, F., Hennig, P. Active Probabilistic Inference on Matrices for Pre-Conditioning in Stochastic Optimization Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS), 89, pages: 1448-1457, (Editors: Kamalika Chaudhuri and Masashi Sugiyama), PMLR, April 2019 (conference)

PDF link (url) [BibTex]

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Fast Gaussian Process Based Gradient Matching for Parameter Identification in Systems of Nonlinear ODEs

Wenk, P., Gotovos, A., Bauer, S., Gorbach, N., Krause, A., Buhmann, J. M.

Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS), 89, pages: 1351-1360, (Editors: Kamalika Chaudhuri and Masashi Sugiyama), PMLR, April 2019 (conference)

ei

PDF PDF link (url) [BibTex]

ei Wenk, P., Gotovos, A., Bauer, S., Gorbach, N., Krause, A., Buhmann, J. M. Fast Gaussian Process Based Gradient Matching for Parameter Identification in Systems of Nonlinear ODEs Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS), 89, pages: 1351-1360, (Editors: Kamalika Chaudhuri and Masashi Sugiyama), PMLR, April 2019 (conference)

PDF PDF link (url) [BibTex]

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Perceptual Effects of Inconsistency in Human Animations

Kenny, S., Mahmood, N., Honda, C., Black, M. J., Troje, N. F.

ACM Trans. Appl. Percept., 16(1):2:1-2:18, Febuary 2019 (article)

Abstract
The individual shape of the human body, including the geometry of its articulated structure and the distribution of weight over that structure, influences the kinematics of a person’s movements. How sensitive is the visual system to inconsistencies between shape and motion introduced by retargeting motion from one person onto the shape of another? We used optical motion capture to record five pairs of male performers with large differences in body weight, while they pushed, lifted, and threw objects. From these data, we estimated both the kinematics of the actions as well as the performer’s individual body shape. To obtain consistent and inconsistent stimuli, we created animated avatars by combining the shape and motion estimates from either a single performer or from different performers. Using these stimuli we conducted three experiments in an immersive virtual reality environment. First, a group of participants detected which of two stimuli was inconsistent. Performance was very low, and results were only marginally significant. Next, a second group of participants rated perceived attractiveness, eeriness, and humanness of consistent and inconsistent stimuli, but these judgements of animation characteristics were not affected by consistency of the stimuli. Finally, a third group of participants rated properties of the objects rather than of the performers. Here, we found strong influences of shape-motion inconsistency on perceived weight and thrown distance of objects. This suggests that the visual system relies on its knowledge of shape and motion and that these components are assimilated into an altered perception of the action outcome. We propose that the visual system attempts to resist inconsistent interpretations of human animations. Actions involving object manipulations present an opportunity for the visual system to reinterpret the introduced inconsistencies as a change in the dynamics of an object rather than as an unexpected combination of body shape and body motion.

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publisher pdf DOI [BibTex]

ps Kenny, S., Mahmood, N., Honda, C., Black, M. J., Troje, N. F. Perceptual Effects of Inconsistency in Human Animations ACM Trans. Appl. Percept., 16(1):2:1-2:18, Febuary 2019 (article)

publisher pdf DOI [BibTex]

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Perceiving Systems (2016-2018)
Scientific Advisory Board Report, 2019 (misc)

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pdf [BibTex]

ps Perceiving Systems (2016-2018) Scientific Advisory Board Report, 2019 (misc)

pdf [BibTex]

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A 32-channel multi-coil setup optimized for human brain shimming at 9.4T

Aghaeifar, A., Zhou, J., Heule, R., Tabibian, B., Schölkopf, B., Jia, F., Zaitsev, M., Scheffler, K.

Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2019, (Early View) (article)

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DOI [BibTex]

ei Aghaeifar, A., Zhou, J., Heule, R., Tabibian, B., Schölkopf, B., Jia, F., Zaitsev, M., Scheffler, K. A 32-channel multi-coil setup optimized for human brain shimming at 9.4T Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2019, (Early View) (article)

DOI [BibTex]

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More Powerful Selective Kernel Tests for Feature Selection

Lim, J. N., Yamada, M., Jitkrittum, W., Terada, Y., Matsui, S., Shimodaira, H.

2019 (misc) Submitted

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arXiv [BibTex]

ei Lim, J. N., Yamada, M., Jitkrittum, W., Terada, Y., Matsui, S., Shimodaira, H. More Powerful Selective Kernel Tests for Feature Selection 2019 (misc) Submitted

arXiv [BibTex]

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Multidimensional Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization

Stimper, V., Bauer, S., Ernstorfer, R., Schölkopf, B., Xian, R. P.

IEEE Access, 7, pages: 165437-165447, 2019 (article)

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arXiv link (url) DOI [BibTex]

ei Stimper, V., Bauer, S., Ernstorfer, R., Schölkopf, B., Xian, R. P. Multidimensional Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization IEEE Access, 7, pages: 165437-165447, 2019 (article)

arXiv link (url) DOI [BibTex]

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Enhancing Human Learning via Spaced Repetition Optimization

Tabibian, B., Upadhyay, U., De, A., Zarezade, A., Schölkopf, B., Gomez Rodriguez, M.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019, PNAS published ahead of print January 22, 2019 (article)

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DOI Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

ei Tabibian, B., Upadhyay, U., De, A., Zarezade, A., Schölkopf, B., Gomez Rodriguez, M. Enhancing Human Learning via Spaced Repetition Optimization Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019, PNAS published ahead of print January 22, 2019 (article)

DOI Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

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Learning to Control Highly Accelerated Ballistic Movements on Muscular Robots

Büchler, D., Calandra, R., Peters, J.

2019 (article) Submitted

Abstract
High-speed and high-acceleration movements are inherently hard to control. Applying learning to the control of such motions on anthropomorphic robot arms can improve the accuracy of the control but might damage the system. The inherent exploration of learning approaches can lead to instabilities and the robot reaching joint limits at high speeds. Having hardware that enables safe exploration of high-speed and high-acceleration movements is therefore desirable. To address this issue, we propose to use robots actuated by Pneumatic Artificial Muscles (PAMs). In this paper, we present a four degrees of freedom (DoFs) robot arm that reaches high joint angle accelerations of up to 28000 °/s^2 while avoiding dangerous joint limits thanks to the antagonistic actuation and limits on the air pressure ranges. With this robot arm, we are able to tune control parameters using Bayesian optimization directly on the hardware without additional safety considerations. The achieved tracking performance on a fast trajectory exceeds previous results on comparable PAM-driven robots. We also show that our system can be controlled well on slow trajectories with PID controllers due to careful construction considerations such as minimal bending of cables, lightweight kinematics and minimal contact between PAMs and PAMs with the links. Finally, we propose a novel technique to control the the co-contraction of antagonistic muscle pairs. Experimental results illustrate that choosing the optimal co-contraction level is vital to reach better tracking performance. Through the use of PAM-driven robots and learning, we do a small step towards the future development of robots capable of more human-like motions.

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Arxiv Video [BibTex]

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AReS and MaRS Adversarial and MMD-Minimizing Regression for SDEs

Abbati*, G., Wenk*, P., Osborne, M. A., Krause, A., Schölkopf, B., Bauer, S.

Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), 97, pages: 1-10, Proceedings of Machine Learning Research, (Editors: Chaudhuri, Kamalika and Salakhutdinov, Ruslan), PMLR, 2019, *equal contribution (conference)

ei

PDF link (url) [BibTex]

ei Abbati*, G., Wenk*, P., Osborne, M. A., Krause, A., Schölkopf, B., Bauer, S. AReS and MaRS Adversarial and MMD-Minimizing Regression for SDEs Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), 97, pages: 1-10, Proceedings of Machine Learning Research, (Editors: Chaudhuri, Kamalika and Salakhutdinov, Ruslan), PMLR, 2019, *equal contribution (conference)

PDF link (url) [BibTex]

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The Virtual Caliper: Rapid Creation of Metrically Accurate Avatars from 3D Measurements

Pujades, S., Mohler, B., Thaler, A., Tesch, J., Mahmood, N., Hesse, N., Bülthoff, H. H., Black, M. J.

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 25, pages: 1887,1897, IEEE, 2019 (article)

Abstract
Creating metrically accurate avatars is important for many applications such as virtual clothing try-on, ergonomics, medicine, immersive social media, telepresence, and gaming. Creating avatars that precisely represent a particular individual is challenging however, due to the need for expensive 3D scanners, privacy issues with photographs or videos, and difficulty in making accurate tailoring measurements. We overcome these challenges by creating “The Virtual Caliper”, which uses VR game controllers to make simple measurements. First, we establish what body measurements users can reliably make on their own body. We find several distance measurements to be good candidates and then verify that these are linearly related to 3D body shape as represented by the SMPL body model. The Virtual Caliper enables novice users to accurately measure themselves and create an avatar with their own body shape. We evaluate the metric accuracy relative to ground truth 3D body scan data, compare the method quantitatively to other avatar creation tools, and perform extensive perceptual studies. We also provide a software application to the community that enables novices to rapidly create avatars in fewer than five minutes. Not only is our approach more rapid than existing methods, it exports a metrically accurate 3D avatar model that is rigged and skinned.

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Project Page IEEE Open Access IEEE Open Access PDF DOI [BibTex]

ps Pujades, S., Mohler, B., Thaler, A., Tesch, J., Mahmood, N., Hesse, N., Bülthoff, H. H., Black, M. J. The Virtual Caliper: Rapid Creation of Metrically Accurate Avatars from 3D Measurements IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 25, pages: 1887,1897, IEEE, 2019 (article)

Project Page IEEE Open Access IEEE Open Access PDF DOI [BibTex]

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Inferring causation from time series with perspectives in Earth system sciences

Runge, J., Bathiany, S., Bollt, E., Camps-Valls, G., Coumou, D., Deyle, E., Glymour, C., Kretschmer, M., Mahecha, M., van Nes, E., Peters, J., Quax, R., Reichstein, M., Scheffer, M. S. B., Spirtes, P., Sugihara, G., Sun, J., Zhang, K., Zscheischler, J.

Nature Communications, 2019 (article) In revision

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[BibTex]

ei Runge, J., Bathiany, S., Bollt, E., Camps-Valls, G., Coumou, D., Deyle, E., Glymour, C., Kretschmer, M., Mahecha, M., van Nes, E., Peters, J., Quax, R., Reichstein, M., Scheffer, M. S. B., Spirtes, P., Sugihara, G., Sun, J., Zhang, K., Zscheischler, J. Inferring causation from time series with perspectives in Earth system sciences Nature Communications, 2019 (article) In revision

[BibTex]

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Kernel Stein Tests for Multiple Model Comparison

Lim, J. N., Yamada, M., Schölkopf, B., Jitkrittum, W.

Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 32, 33rd Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, 2019 (conference) To be published

ei

[BibTex]

ei Lim, J. N., Yamada, M., Schölkopf, B., Jitkrittum, W. Kernel Stein Tests for Multiple Model Comparison Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 32, 33rd Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, 2019 (conference) To be published

[BibTex]

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MYND: A Platform for Large-scale Neuroscientific Studies

Hohmann, M. R., Hackl, M., Wirth, B., Zaman, T., Enficiaud, R., Grosse-Wentrup, M., Schölkopf, B.

Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2019 (conference) Accepted

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[BibTex]

ei Hohmann, M. R., Hackl, M., Wirth, B., Zaman, T., Enficiaud, R., Grosse-Wentrup, M., Schölkopf, B. MYND: A Platform for Large-scale Neuroscientific Studies Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2019 (conference) Accepted

[BibTex]

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A Kernel Stein Test for Comparing Latent Variable Models

Kanagawa, H., Jitkrittum, W., Mackey, L., Fukumizu, K., Gretton, A.

2019 (conference) Submitted

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arXiv [BibTex]

ei Kanagawa, H., Jitkrittum, W., Mackey, L., Fukumizu, K., Gretton, A. A Kernel Stein Test for Comparing Latent Variable Models 2019 (conference) Submitted

arXiv [BibTex]

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Resisting Adversarial Attacks using Gaussian Mixture Variational Autoencoders

Ghosh, P., Losalka, A., Black, M. J.

In Proc. AAAI, 2019 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Susceptibility of deep neural networks to adversarial attacks poses a major theoretical and practical challenge. All efforts to harden classifiers against such attacks have seen limited success till now. Two distinct categories of samples against which deep neural networks are vulnerable, ``adversarial samples" and ``fooling samples", have been tackled separately so far due to the difficulty posed when considered together. In this work, we show how one can defend against them both under a unified framework. Our model has the form of a variational autoencoder with a Gaussian mixture prior on the latent variable, such that each mixture component corresponds to a single class. We show how selective classification can be performed using this model, thereby causing the adversarial objective to entail a conflict. The proposed method leads to the rejection of adversarial samples instead of misclassification, while maintaining high precision and recall on test data. It also inherently provides a way of learning a selective classifier in a semi-supervised scenario, which can similarly resist adversarial attacks. We further show how one can reclassify the detected adversarial samples by iterative optimization.

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link (url) Project Page [BibTex]

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From Variational to Deterministic Autoencoders

Ghosh*, P., Sajjadi*, M. S. M., Vergari, A., Black, M. J., Schölkopf, B.

2019, *equal contribution (conference) Submitted

Abstract
Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) provide a theoretically-backed framework for deep generative models. However, they often produce “blurry” images, which is linked to their training objective. Sampling in the most popular implementation, the Gaussian VAE, can be interpreted as simply injecting noise to the input of a deterministic decoder. In practice, this simply enforces a smooth latent space structure. We challenge the adoption of the full VAE framework on this specific point in favor of a simpler, deterministic one. Specifically, we investigate how substituting stochasticity with other explicit and implicit regularization schemes can lead to a meaningful latent space without having to force it to conform to an arbitrarily chosen prior. To retrieve a generative mechanism for sampling new data points, we propose to employ an efficient ex-post density estimation step that can be readily adopted both for the proposed deterministic autoencoders as well as to improve sample quality of existing VAEs. We show in a rigorous empirical study that regularized deterministic autoencoding achieves state-of-the-art sample quality on the common MNIST, CIFAR-10 and CelebA datasets.

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arXiv [BibTex]

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Probabilistic Linear Solvers: A Unifying View

Bartels, S., Cockayne, J., Ipsen, I. C. F., Hennig, P.

Statistics and Computing, 2019 (article) Accepted

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link (url) [BibTex]

pn Bartels, S., Cockayne, J., Ipsen, I. C. F., Hennig, P. Probabilistic Linear Solvers: A Unifying View Statistics and Computing, 2019 (article) Accepted

link (url) [BibTex]

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Fisher Efficient Inference of Intractable Models

Liu, S., Kanamori, T., Jitkrittum, W., Chen, Y.

Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 32, 33rd Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, 2019 (conference) To be published

ei

arXiv [BibTex]

ei Liu, S., Kanamori, T., Jitkrittum, W., Chen, Y. Fisher Efficient Inference of Intractable Models Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 32, 33rd Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, 2019 (conference) To be published

arXiv [BibTex]

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Eigendecompositions of Transfer Operators in Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces

Klus, S., Schuster, I., Muandet, K.

Journal of Nonlinear Science, 2019, First Online: 21 August 2019 (article)

ei

DOI [BibTex]

ei Klus, S., Schuster, I., Muandet, K. Eigendecompositions of Transfer Operators in Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces Journal of Nonlinear Science, 2019, First Online: 21 August 2019 (article)

DOI [BibTex]

2009

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Efficient Subwindow Search: A Branch and Bound Framework for Object Localization

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

IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 31(12):2129-2142, December 2009 (article)

Abstract
Most successful object recognition systems rely on binary classification, deciding only if an object is present or not, but not providing information on the actual object location. To estimate the object‘s location, one can take a sliding window approach, but this strongly increases the computational cost because the classifier or similarity function has to be evaluated over a large set of candidate subwindows. In this paper, we propose a simple yet powerful branch and bound scheme that allows efficient maximization of a large class of quality functions over all possible subimages. It converges to a globally optimal solution typically in linear or even sublinear time, in contrast to the quadratic scaling of exhaustive or sliding window search. We show how our method is applicable to different object detection and image retrieval scenarios. The achieved speedup allows the use of classifiers for localization that formerly were considered too slow for this task, such as SVMs with a spatial pyramid kernel or nearest-neighbor classifiers based on the chi^2 distance. We demonstrate state-of-the-art localization performance of the resulting systems on the UIUC Cars data set, the PASCAL VOC 2006 data set, and in the PASCAL VOC 2007 competition.

ei

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

2009

ei Lampert, C., Blaschko, M., Hofmann, T. Efficient Subwindow Search: A Branch and Bound Framework for Object Localization IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 31(12):2129-2142, December 2009 (article)

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

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A computational model of human table tennis for robot application

Mülling, K., Peters, J.

In AMS 2009, pages: 57-64, (Editors: Dillmann, R. , J. Beyerer, C. Stiller, M. Zöllner, T. Gindele), Springer, Berlin, Germany, Autonome Mobile Systeme, December 2009 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Table tennis is a difficult motor skill which requires all basic components of a general motor skill learning system. In order to get a step closer to such a generic approach to the automatic acquisition and refinement of table tennis, we study table tennis from a human motor control point of view. We make use of the basic models of discrete human movement phases, virtual hitting points, and the operational timing hypothesis. Using these components, we create a computational model which is aimed at reproducing human-like behavior. We verify the functionality of this model in a physically realistic simulation of a BarrettWAM.

ei

Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Mülling, K., Peters, J. A computational model of human table tennis for robot application In AMS 2009, pages: 57-64, (Editors: Dillmann, R. , J. Beyerer, C. Stiller, M. Zöllner, T. Gindele), Springer, Berlin, Germany, Autonome Mobile Systeme, December 2009 (inproceedings)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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A second order sliding mode controller with polygonal constraints

Dinuzzo, F.

In pages: 6715-6719, IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, 48th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), December 2009 (inproceedings)

Abstract
It is presented a discontinuous controller that ensure uniform finite-time zero stabilization of the output for uncertain SISO systems of relative degree two, while keeping the auxiliary system state within a prescribed convex polygon. The proposed method extends applicability of second order sliding modes controllers to the case of uncertain dynamical systems with constraints.

ei

Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Dinuzzo, F. A second order sliding mode controller with polygonal constraints In pages: 6715-6719, IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, 48th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), December 2009 (inproceedings)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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Generation of three-dimensional random rotations in fitting and matching problems

Habeck, M.

Computational Statistics, 24(4):719-731, December 2009 (article)

Abstract
An algorithm is developed to generate random rotations in three-dimensional space that follow a probability distribution arising in fitting and matching problems. The rotation matrices are orthogonally transformed into an optimal basis and then parameterized using Euler angles. The conditional distributions of the three Euler angles have a very simple form: the two azimuthal angles can be decoupled by sampling their sum and difference from a von Mises distribution; the cosine of the polar angle is exponentially distributed and thus straighforward to generate. Simulation results are shown and demonstrate the effectiveness of the method. The algorithm is compared to other methods for generating random rotations such as a random walk Metropolis scheme and a Gibbs sampling algorithm recently introduced by Green and Mardia. Finally, the algorithm is applied to a probabilistic version of the Procrustes problem of fitting two point sets and applied in the context of protein structure superposition.

ei

PDF DOI [BibTex]

ei Habeck, M. Generation of three-dimensional random rotations in fitting and matching problems Computational Statistics, 24(4):719-731, December 2009 (article)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

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Adaptive Importance Sampling for Value Function Approximation in Off-policy Reinforcement Learning

Hachiya, H., Akiyama, T., Sugiyama, M., Peters, J.

Neural Networks, 22(10):1399-1410, December 2009 (article)

Abstract
Off-policy reinforcement learning is aimed at efficiently using data samples gathered from a policy that is different from the currently optimized policy. A common approach is to use importance sampling techniques for compensating for the bias of value function estimators caused by the difference between the data-sampling policy and the target policy. However, existing off-policy methods often do not take the variance of the value function estimators explicitly into account and therefore their performance tends to be unstable. To cope with this problem, we propose using an adaptive importance sampling technique which allows us to actively control the trade-off between bias and variance. We further provide a method for optimally determining the trade-off parameter based on a variant of cross-validation. We demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed approach through simulations.

ei

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Hachiya, H., Akiyama, T., Sugiyama, M., Peters, J. Adaptive Importance Sampling for Value Function Approximation in Off-policy Reinforcement Learning Neural Networks, 22(10):1399-1410, December 2009 (article)

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

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A PAC-Bayesian Approach to Formulation of Clustering Objectives

Seldin, Y., Tishby, N.

In Proceedings of the NIPS 2009 Workshop "Clustering: Science or Art? Towards Principled Approaches", pages: 1-4, NIPS Workshop "Clustering: Science or Art? Towards Principled Approaches", December 2009 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Clustering is a widely used tool for exploratory data analysis. However, the theoretical understanding of clustering is very limited. We still do not have a well-founded answer to the seemingly simple question of “how many clusters are present in the data?”, and furthermore a formal comparison of clusterings based on different optimization objectives is far beyond our abilities. The lack of good theoretical support gives rise to multiple heuristics that confuse the practitioners and stall development of the field. We suggest that the ill-posed nature of clustering problems is caused by the fact that clustering is often taken out of its subsequent application context. We argue that one does not cluster the data just for the sake of clustering it, but rather to facilitate the solution of some higher level task. By evaluation of the clustering’s contribution to the solution of the higher level task it is possible to compare different clusterings, even those obtained by different optimization objectives. In the preceding work it was shown that such an approach can be applied to evaluation and design of co-clustering solutions. Here we suggest that this approach can be extended to other settings, where clustering is applied.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Seldin, Y., Tishby, N. A PAC-Bayesian Approach to Formulation of Clustering Objectives In Proceedings of the NIPS 2009 Workshop "Clustering: Science or Art? Towards Principled Approaches", pages: 1-4, NIPS Workshop "Clustering: Science or Art? Towards Principled Approaches", December 2009 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Notes on Graph Cuts with Submodular Edge Weights

Jegelka, S., Bilmes, J.

In pages: 1-6, NIPS Workshop on Discrete Optimization in Machine Learning: Submodularity, Sparsity & Polyhedra (DISCML), December 2009 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Generalizing 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 (|V |1/3) on the approximation factor for the (s, t) cut version of the problem. On the positive side, we propose and compare three approximation algorithms with an overall approximation factor of O(min{|V |,p|E| log |V |}) that appear to do well in practice.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Jegelka, S., Bilmes, J. Notes on Graph Cuts with Submodular Edge Weights In pages: 1-6, NIPS Workshop on Discrete Optimization in Machine Learning: Submodularity, Sparsity & Polyhedra (DISCML), December 2009 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Guest editorial: special issue on structured prediction

Parker, C., Altun, Y., Tadepalli, P.

Machine Learning, 77(2-3):161-164, December 2009 (article)

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PDF DOI [BibTex]

ei Parker, C., Altun, Y., Tadepalli, P. Guest editorial: special issue on structured prediction Machine Learning, 77(2-3):161-164, December 2009 (article)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

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Structured prediction by joint kernel support estimation

Lampert, CH., Blaschko, MB.

Machine Learning, 77(2-3):249-269, December 2009 (article)

ei

PDF DOI [BibTex]

ei Lampert, CH., Blaschko, MB. Structured prediction by joint kernel support estimation Machine Learning, 77(2-3):249-269, December 2009 (article)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

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Learning new basic Movements for Robotics

Kober, J., Peters, J.

In AMS 2009, pages: 105-112, (Editors: Dillmann, R. , J. Beyerer, C. Stiller, M. Zöllner, T. Gindele), Springer, Berlin, Germany, Autonome Mobile Systeme, December 2009 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Obtaining novel skills is one of the most important problems in robotics. Machine learning techniques may be a promising approach for automatic and autonomous acquisition of movement policies. However, this requires both an appropriate policy representation and suitable learning algorithms. Employing the most recent form of the dynamical systems motor primitives originally introduced by Ijspeert et al. [1], we show how both discrete and rhythmic tasks can be learned using a concerted approach of both imitation and reinforcement learning, and present our current best performing learning algorithms. Finally, we show that it is possible to include a start-up phase in rhythmic primitives. We apply our approach to two elementary movements, i.e., Ball-in-a-Cup and Ball-Paddling, which can be learned on a real Barrett WAM robot arm at a pace similar to human learning.

ei

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Kober, J., Peters, J. Learning new basic Movements for Robotics In AMS 2009, pages: 105-112, (Editors: Dillmann, R. , J. Beyerer, C. Stiller, M. Zöllner, T. Gindele), Springer, Berlin, Germany, Autonome Mobile Systeme, December 2009 (inproceedings)

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

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Ball Joints for Marker-less Human Motion Capture

Pons-Moll, G., Rosenhahn, B.

In IEEE Workshop on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV),, December 2009 (inproceedings)

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pdf [BibTex]

ps Pons-Moll, G., Rosenhahn, B. Ball Joints for Marker-less Human Motion Capture In IEEE Workshop on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV),, December 2009 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

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From Motor Learning to Interaction Learning in Robots

Sigaud, O., Peters, J.

In Proceedings of 7ème Journées Nationales de la Recherche en Robotique, pages: 189-195, JNRR, November 2009 (inproceedings)

Abstract
The number of advanced robot systems has been increasing in recent years yielding a large variety of versatile designs with many degrees of freedom. These robots have the potential of being applicable in uncertain tasks outside well-structured industrial settings. However, the complexity of both systems and tasks is often beyond the reach of classical robot programming methods. As a result, a more autonomous solution for robot task acquisition is needed where robots adaptively adjust their behaviour to the encountered situations and required tasks. Learning approaches pose one of the most appealing ways to achieve this goal. However, while learning approaches are of high importance for robotics, we cannot simply use off-the-shelf methods from the machine learning community as these usually do not scale into the domains of robotics due to excessive computational cost as well as a lack of scalability. Instead, domain appropriate approaches are needed. We focus here on several core domains of robot learning. For accurate task execution, we need motor learning capabilities. For fast learning of the motor tasks, imitation learning offers the most promising approach. Self improvement requires reinforcement learning approaches that scale into the domain of complex robots. Finally, for efficient interaction of humans with robot systems, we will need a form of interaction learning. This contribution provides a general introduction to these issues and briefly presents the contributions of the related book chapters to the corresponding research topics.

ei

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ei Sigaud, O., Peters, J. From Motor Learning to Interaction Learning in Robots In Proceedings of 7ème Journées Nationales de la Recherche en Robotique, pages: 189-195, JNRR, November 2009 (inproceedings)

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A note on ethical aspects of BCI

Haselager, P., Vlek, R., Hill, J., Nijboer, F.

Neural Networks, 22(9):1352-1357, November 2009 (article)

Abstract
This paper focuses on ethical aspects of BCI, as a research and a clinical tool, that are challenging for practitioners currently working in the field. Specifically, the difficulties involved in acquiring informed consent from locked-in patients are investigated, in combination with an analysis of the shared moral responsibility in BCI teams, and the complications encountered in establishing effective communication with media.

ei

Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Haselager, P., Vlek, R., Hill, J., Nijboer, F. A note on ethical aspects of BCI Neural Networks, 22(9):1352-1357, November 2009 (article)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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Model Learning with Local Gaussian Process Regression

Nguyen-Tuong, D., Seeger, M., Peters, J.

Advanced Robotics, 23(15):2015-2034, November 2009 (article)

Abstract
Precise models of robot inverse dynamics allow the design of significantly more accurate, energy-efficient and compliant robot control. However, in some cases the accuracy of rigid-body models does not suffice for sound control performance due to unmodeled nonlinearities arising from hydraulic cable dynamics, complex friction or actuator dynamics. In such cases, estimating the inverse dynamics model from measured data poses an interesting alternative. Nonparametric regression methods, such as Gaussian process regression (GPR) or locally weighted projection regression (LWPR), are not as restrictive as parametric models and, thus, offer a more flexible framework for approximating unknown nonlinearities. In this paper, we propose a local approximation to the standard GPR, called local GPR (LGP), for real-time model online learning by combining the strengths of both regression methods, i.e., the high accuracy of GPR and the fast speed of LWPR. The approach is shown to have competitive learning performance for hig h-dimensional data while being sufficiently fast for real-time learning. The effectiveness of LGP is exhibited by a comparison with the state-of-the-art regression techniques, such as GPR, LWPR and ν-support vector regression. The applicability of the proposed LGP method is demonstrated by real-time online learning of the inverse dynamics model for robot model-based control on a Barrett WAM robot arm.

ei

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Nguyen-Tuong, D., Seeger, M., Peters, J. Model Learning with Local Gaussian Process Regression Advanced Robotics, 23(15):2015-2034, November 2009 (article)

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Methods for feature selection in a learning machine

Weston, J., Elisseeff, A., Schölkopf, B., Pérez-Cruz, F.

United States Patent, No 7624074, November 2009 (patent)

ei

[BibTex]

ei Weston, J., Elisseeff, A., Schölkopf, B., Pérez-Cruz, F. Methods for feature selection in a learning machine United States Patent, No 7624074, November 2009 (patent)

[BibTex]

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Detecting Objects in Large Image Collections and Videos by Efficient Subimage Retrieval

Lampert, CH.

In ICCV 2009, pages: 987-994, IEEE Computer Society, Piscataway, NJ, USA, Twelfth IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, October 2009 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We study the task of detecting the occurrence of objects in large image collections or in videos, a problem that combines aspects of content based image retrieval and object localization. While most previous approaches are either limited to special kinds of queries, or do not scale to large image sets, we propose a new method, efficient subimage retrieval (ESR), which is at the same time very flexible and very efficient. Relying on a two-layered branch-and-bound setup, ESR performs object-based image retrieval in sets of 100,000 or more images within seconds. An extensive evaluation on several datasets shows that ESR is not only very fast, but it also achieves detection accuracies that are on par with or superior to previously published methods for object-based image retrieval.

ei

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Lampert, CH. Detecting Objects in Large Image Collections and Videos by Efficient Subimage Retrieval In ICCV 2009, pages: 987-994, IEEE Computer Society, Piscataway, NJ, USA, Twelfth IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, October 2009 (inproceedings)

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Inferring textual entailment with a probabilistically sound calculus

Harmeling, S.

Natural Language Engineering, 15(4):459-477, October 2009 (article)

Abstract
We introduce a system for textual entailment that is based on a probabilistic model of entailment. The model is defined using a calculus of transformations on dependency trees, which is characterized by the fact that derivations in that calculus preserve the truth only with a certain probability. The calculus is successfully evaluated on the datasets of the PASCAL Challenge on Recognizing Textual Entailment.

ei

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Harmeling, S. Inferring textual entailment with a probabilistically sound calculus Natural Language Engineering, 15(4):459-477, October 2009 (article)

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Modeling and Visualizing Uncertainty in Gene Expression Clusters using Dirichlet Process Mixtures

Rasmussen, CE., de la Cruz, BJ., Ghahramani, Z., Wild, DL.

IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, 6(4):615-628, October 2009 (article)

Abstract
Although the use of clustering methods has rapidly become one of the standard computational approaches in the literature of microarray gene expression data, little attention has been paid to uncertainty in the results obtained. Dirichlet process mixture models provide a non-parametric Bayesian alternative to the bootstrap approach to modeling uncertainty in gene expression clustering. Most previously published applications of Bayesian model based clustering methods have been to short time series data. In this paper we present a case study of the application of non-parametric Bayesian clustering methods to the clustering of high-dimensional non-time series gene expression data using full Gaussian covariances. We use the probability that two genes belong to the same cluster in a Dirichlet process mixture model as a measure of the similarity of these gene expression profiles. Conversely, this probability can be used to define a dissimilarity measure, which, for the purposes of visualization, can be input to one of the standard linkage algorithms used for hierarchical clustering. Biologically plausible results are obtained from the Rosetta compendium of expression profiles which extend previously published cluster analyses of this data.

ei

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Rasmussen, CE., de la Cruz, BJ., Ghahramani, Z., Wild, DL. Modeling and Visualizing Uncertainty in Gene Expression Clusters using Dirichlet Process Mixtures IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, 6(4):615-628, October 2009 (article)

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A new non-monotonic algorithm for PET image reconstruction

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

In IEEE - Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record (NSS/MIC), 2009, pages: 2500-2502, (Editors: B Yu), IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference, October 2009 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Maximizing some form of Poisson likelihood (either with or without penalization) is central to image reconstruction algorithms in emission tomography. In this paper we introduce NMML, a non-monotonic algorithm for maximum likelihood PET image reconstruction. NMML offers a simple and flexible procedure that also easily incorporates standard convex regular-ization for doing penalized likelihood estimation. A vast number image reconstruction algorithms have been developed for PET, and new ones continue to be designed. Among these, methods based on the expectation maximization (EM) and ordered-subsets (OS) framework seem to have enjoyed the greatest popularity. Our method NMML differs fundamentally from methods based on EM: i) it does not depend on the concept of optimization transfer (or surrogate functions); and ii) it is a rapidly converging nonmonotonic descent procedure. The greatest strengths of NMML, however, are its simplicity, efficiency, and scalability, which make it especially attractive for tomograph ic reconstruction. We provide a theoretical analysis NMML, and empirically observe it to outperform standard EM based methods, sometimes by orders of magnitude. NMML seamlessly allows integreation of penalties (regularizers) in the likelihood. This ability can prove to be crucial, especially because with the rapidly rising importance of combined PET/MR scanners, one will want to include more “prior” knowledge into the reconstruction.

ei

PDF DOI [BibTex]

ei Sra, S., Kim, D., Dhillon, I., Schölkopf, B. A new non-monotonic algorithm for PET image reconstruction In IEEE - Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record (NSS/MIC), 2009, pages: 2500-2502, (Editors: B Yu), IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference, October 2009 (inproceedings)

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Approximation Algorithms for Tensor Clustering

Jegelka, S., Sra, S., Banerjee, A.

In Algorithmic Learning Theory: 20th International Conference, pages: 368-383, (Editors: Gavalda, R. , G. Lugosi, T. Zeugmann, S. Zilles), Springer, Berlin, Germany, ALT, October 2009 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We present the first (to our knowledge) approximation algo- rithm for tensor clustering—a powerful generalization to basic 1D clustering. Tensors are increasingly common in modern applications dealing with complex heterogeneous data and clustering them is a fundamental tool for data analysis and pattern discovery. Akin to their 1D cousins, common tensor clustering formulations are NP-hard to optimize. But, unlike the 1D case no approximation algorithms seem to be known. We address this imbalance and build on recent co-clustering work to derive a tensor clustering algorithm with approximation guarantees, allowing metrics and divergences (e.g., Bregman) as objective functions. Therewith, we answer two open questions by Anagnostopoulos et al. (2008). Our analysis yields a constant approximation factor independent of data size; a worst-case example shows this factor to be tight for Euclidean co-clustering. However, empirically the approximation factor is observed to be conservative, so our method can also be used in practice.

ei

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Jegelka, S., Sra, S., Banerjee, A. Approximation Algorithms for Tensor Clustering In Algorithmic Learning Theory: 20th International Conference, pages: 368-383, (Editors: Gavalda, R. , G. Lugosi, T. Zeugmann, S. Zilles), Springer, Berlin, Germany, ALT, October 2009 (inproceedings)

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Active learning using mean shift optimization for robot grasping

Kroemer, O., Detry, R., Piater, J., Peters, J.

In Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2009), pages: 2610-2615, IEEE Service Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA, 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), October 2009 (inproceedings)

Abstract
When children learn to grasp a new object, they often know several possible grasping points from observing a parent‘s demonstration and subsequently learn better grasps by trial and error. From a machine learning point of view, this process is an active learning approach. In this paper, we present a new robot learning framework for reproducing this ability in robot grasping. For doing so, we chose a straightforward approach: first, the robot observes a few good grasps by demonstration and learns a value function for these grasps using Gaussian process regression. Subsequently, it chooses grasps which are optimal with respect to this value function using a mean-shift optimization approach, and tries them out on the real system. Upon every completed trial, the value function is updated, and in the following trials it is more likely to choose even better grasping points. This method exhibits fast learning due to the data-efficiency of Gaussian process regression framework and the fact th at t he mean-shift method provides maxima of this cost function. Experiments were repeatedly carried out successfully on a real robot system. After less than sixty trials, our system has adapted its grasping policy to consistently exhibit successful grasps.

ei

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Kroemer, O., Detry, R., Piater, J., Peters, J. Active learning using mean shift optimization for robot grasping In Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2009), pages: 2610-2615, IEEE Service Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA, 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), October 2009 (inproceedings)

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Sparse online model learning for robot control with support vector regression

Nguyen-Tuong, D., Schölkopf, B., Peters, J.

In Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2009), pages: 3121-3126, IEEE Service Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA, 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), October 2009 (inproceedings)

Abstract
The increasing complexity of modern robots makes it prohibitively hard to accurately model such systems as required by many applications. In such cases, machine learning methods offer a promising alternative for approximating such models using measured data. To date, high computational demands have largely restricted machine learning techniques to mostly offline applications. However, making the robots adaptive to changes in the dynamics and to cope with unexplored areas of the state space requires online learning. In this paper, we propose an approximation of the support vector regression (SVR) by sparsification based on the linear independency of training data. As a result, we obtain a method which is applicable in real-time online learning. It exhibits competitive learning accuracy when compared with standard regression techniques, such as nu-SVR, Gaussian process regression (GPR) and locally weighted projection regression (LWPR).

ei

Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Nguyen-Tuong, D., Schölkopf, B., Peters, J. Sparse online model learning for robot control with support vector regression In Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2009), pages: 3121-3126, IEEE Service Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA, 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), October 2009 (inproceedings)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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Background Subtraction Based on Rank Constraint for Point Trajectories

Ahmad, A., Del Bue, A., Lima, P.

In pages: 1-3, 15th Portuguese Conference on Pattern Recognition (RecPad), October 2009 (inproceedings)

Abstract
This work deals with a background subtraction algorithm for a fish-eye lens camera having 3 degrees of freedom, 2 in translation and 1 in rotation. The core assumption in this algorithm is that the background is considered to be composed of a dominant static plane in the world frame. The novelty lies in developing a rank-constraint based background subtraction for equidistant projection model, a property of the fish-eye lens. A detail simulation result is presented to support the hypotheses explained in this paper.

ps

link (url) [BibTex]

ps Ahmad, A., Del Bue, A., Lima, P. Background Subtraction Based on Rank Constraint for Point Trajectories In pages: 1-3, 15th Portuguese Conference on Pattern Recognition (RecPad), October 2009 (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Causality Discovery with Additive Disturbances: An Information-Theoretical Perspective

Zhang, K., Hyvärinen, A.

In Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases, pages: 570-585, (Editors: Buntine, W. , M. Grobelnik, D. Mladenić, J. Shawe-Taylor ), Springer, Berlin, Germany, European Conference on Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases: Part II (ECML PKDD '09), September 2009 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We consider causally sufficient acyclic causal models in which the relationship among the variables is nonlinear while disturbances have linear effects, and show that three principles, namely, the causal Markov condition (together with the independence between each disturbance and the corresponding parents), minimum disturbance entropy, and mutual independence of the disturbances, are equivalent. This motivates new and more efficient methods for some causal discovery problems. In particular, we propose to use multichannel blind deconvolution, an extension of independent component analysis, to do Granger causality analysis with instantaneous effects. This approach gives more accurate estimates of the parameters and can easily incorporate sparsity constraints. For additive disturbance-based nonlinear causal discovery, we first make use of the conditional independence relationships to obtain the equivalence class; undetermined causal directions are then found by nonlinear regression and pairwise independence tests. This avoids the brute-force search and greatly reduces the computational load.

ei

PDF PDF DOI [BibTex]

ei Zhang, K., Hyvärinen, A. Causality Discovery with Additive Disturbances: An Information-Theoretical Perspective In Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases, pages: 570-585, (Editors: Buntine, W. , M. Grobelnik, D. Mladenić, J. Shawe-Taylor ), Springer, Berlin, Germany, European Conference on Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases: Part II (ECML PKDD '09), September 2009 (inproceedings)

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