Asymmetric bagging and random subspace for support vector machines-based relevance feedback in image retrieval

Relevance feedback schemes based on support vector machines (SVM) have been widely used in content-based image retrieval (CBIR). However, the performance of SVM-based relevance feedback is often poor when the number of labeled positive feedback samples is small. This is mainly due to three reasons: 1) an SVM classifier is unstable on a small-sized training set, 2) SVM's optimal hyperplane may be biased when the positive feedback samples are much less than the negative feedback samples, and 3) overfitting happens because the number of feature dimensions is much higher than the size of the training set. In this paper, we develop a mechanism to overcome these problems. To address the first two problems, we propose an asymmetric bagging-based SVM (AB-SVM). For the third problem, we combine the random subspace method and SVM for relevance feedback, which is named random subspace SVM (RS-SVM). Finally, by integrating AB-SVM and RS-SVM, an asymmetric bagging and random subspace SVM (ABRS-SVM) is built to solve these three problems and further improve the relevance feedback performance

Fuzzy Least Squares Twin Support Vector Machines

Least Squares Twin Support Vector Machine (LST-SVM) has been shown to be an efficient and fast algorithm for binary classification. It combines the operating principles of Least Squares SVM (LS-SVM) and Twin SVM (T-SVM); it constructs two non-parallel hyperplanes (as in T-SVM) by solving two systems of linear equations (as in LS-SVM). Despite its efficiency, LST-SVM is still unable to cope with two features of real-world problems. First, in many real-world applications, labels of samples are not deterministic; they come naturally with their associated membership degrees. Second, samples in real-world applications may not be equally important and their importance degrees affect the classification. In this paper, we propose Fuzzy LST-SVM (FLST-SVM) to deal with these two characteristics of real-world data. Two models are introduced for FLST-SVM: the first model builds up crisp hyperplanes using training samples and their corresponding membership degrees. The second model, on the other hand, constructs fuzzy hyperplanes using training samples and their membership degrees. Numerical evaluation of the proposed method with synthetic and real datasets demonstrate significant improvement in the classification accuracy of FLST-SVM when compared to well-known existing versions of SVM

Learning Using Privileged Information: SVM+ and Weighted SVM

Prior knowledge can be used to improve predictive performance of learning algorithms or reduce the amount of data required for training. The same goal is pursued within the learning using privileged information paradigm which was recently introduced by Vapnik et al. and is aimed at utilizing additional information available only at training time -- a framework implemented by SVM+. We relate the privileged information to importance weighting and show that the prior knowledge expressible with privileged features can also be encoded by weights associated with every training example. We show that a weighted SVM can always replicate an SVM+ solution, while the converse is not true and we construct a counterexample highlighting the limitations of SVM+. Finally, we touch on the problem of choosing weights for weighted SVMs when privileged features are not available.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures; integrated reviewer comments, improved typesettin

Performance and optimization of support vector machines in high-energy physics classification problems

In this paper we promote the use of Support Vector Machines (SVM) as a machine learning tool for searches in high-energy physics. As an example for a new- physics search we discuss the popular case of Supersymmetry at the Large Hadron Collider. We demonstrate that the SVM is a valuable tool and show that an automated discovery- significance based optimization of the SVM hyper-parameters is a highly efficient way to prepare an SVM for such applications. A new C++ LIBSVM interface called SVM-HINT is developed and available on Github.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure