Multi-Label Latent Spaces with Semi-Supervised Deep Generative Models

Expert labeling, tagging, and assessment are far more costly than the processes of collecting raw data. Generative modeling is a very powerful tool to tackle this real-world problem. It is shown here how these models can be used to allow for semi-supervised learning that performs very well in label-deficient conditions. The foundation for the work in this dissertation is built upon visualizing generative models\u27 latent spaces to gain deeper understanding of data, analyze faults, and propose solutions. A number of novel ideas and approaches are presented to improve single-label classification. This dissertation\u27s main focus is on extending semi-supervised Deep Generative Models for solving the multi-label problem by proposing unique mathematical and programming concepts and organization. In all naive mixtures, using multiple labels is detrimental and causes each label\u27s predictions to be worse than models that utilize only a single label. Examining latent spaces reveals that in many cases, large regions in the models generate meaningless results. Enforcing a priori independence is essential, and only when applied can multi-label models outperform the best single-label models. Finally, a novel learning technique called open-book learning is described that is capable of surpassing the state-of-the-art classification performance of generative models for multi-labeled, semi-supervised data sets

Optimization of convolutional neural networks for image classification using genetic algorithms and bayesian optimization

Notwithstanding the recent successes of deep convolutional neural networks for classification tasks, they are sensitive to the selection of their hyperparameters, which impose an exponentially large search space on modern convolutional models. Traditional hyperparameter selection methods include manual, grid, or random search, but these require expert knowledge or are computationally burdensome. Divergently, Bayesian optimization and evolutionary inspired techniques have surfaced as viable alternatives to the hyperparameter problem. Thus, an alternative hybrid approach that combines the advantages of these techniques is proposed. Specifically, the search space is partitioned into discrete-architectural, and continuous and categorical hyperparameter subspaces, which are respectively traversed by a stochastic genetic search, followed by a genetic-Bayesian search. Simulations on a prominent image classification task reveal that the proposed method results in an overall classification accuracy improvement of 0.87% over unoptimized baselines, and a greater than 97% reduction in computational costs compared to a commonly employed brute force approach.Electrical and Mining EngineeringM. Tech. (Electrical Engineering

Information Preserving Processing of Noisy Handwritten Document Images

Many pre-processing techniques that normalize artifacts and clean noise induce anomalies due to discretization of the document image. Important information that could be used at later stages may be lost. A proposed composite-model framework takes into account pre-printed information, user-added data, and digitization characteristics. Its benefits are demonstrated by experiments with statistically significant results. Separating pre-printed ruling lines from user-added handwriting shows how ruling lines impact people\u27s handwriting and how they can be exploited for identifying writers. Ruling line detection based on multi-line linear regression reduces the mean error of counting them from 0.10 to 0.03, 6.70 to 0.06, and 0.13 to 0.02, com- pared to an HMM-based approach on three standard test datasets, thereby reducing human correction time by 50%, 83%, and 72% on average. On 61 page images from 16 rule-form templates, the precision and recall of form cell recognition are increased by 2.7% and 3.7%, compared to a cross-matrix approach. Compensating for and exploiting ruling lines during feature extraction rather than pre-processing raises the writer identification accuracy from 61.2% to 67.7% on a 61-writer noisy Arabic dataset. Similarly, counteracting page-wise skew by subtracting it or transforming contours in a continuous coordinate system during feature extraction improves the writer identification accuracy. An implementation study of contour-hinge features reveals that utilizing the full probabilistic probability distribution function matrix improves the writer identification accuracy from 74.9% to 79.5%

An incremental clustering and associative learning architecture for intelligent robotics

The ability to learn from the environment and memorise the acquired knowledge is essential for robots to become autonomous and versatile artificial companions. This thesis proposes a novel learning and memory architecture for robots, which performs associative learning and recall of sensory and actuator patterns. The approach avoids the inclusion of task-specific expert knowledge and can deal with any kind of multi-dimensional real-valued data, apart from being tolerant to noise and supporting incremental learning. The proposed architecture integrates two machine learning methods: a topology learning algorithm that performs incremental clustering, and an associative memory model that learns relationship information based on the co-occurrence of inputs. The evaluations of both the topology learning algorithm and the associative memory model involved the memorisation of high-dimensional visual data as well as the association of symbolic data, presented simultaneously and sequentially. Moreover, the document analyses the results of two experiments in which the entire architecture was evaluated regarding its associative and incremental learning capabilities. One experiment comprised an incremental learning task with visual patterns and text labels, which was performed both in a simulated scenario and with a real robot. In a second experiment a robot learned to recognise visual patterns in the form of road signs and associated them with di erent con gurations of its arm joints. The thesis also discusses several learning-related aspects of the architecture and highlights strengths and weaknesses of the proposed approach. The developed architecture and corresponding ndings contribute to the domains of machine learning and intelligent robotics

Advances in Image Processing, Analysis and Recognition Technology

For many decades, researchers have been trying to make computers’ analysis of images as effective as the system of human vision is. For this purpose, many algorithms and systems have previously been created. The whole process covers various stages, including image processing, representation and recognition. The results of this work can be applied to many computer-assisted areas of everyday life. They improve particular activities and provide handy tools, which are sometimes only for entertainment, but quite often, they significantly increase our safety. In fact, the practical implementation of image processing algorithms is particularly wide. Moreover, the rapid growth of computational complexity and computer efficiency has allowed for the development of more sophisticated and effective algorithms and tools. Although significant progress has been made so far, many issues still remain, resulting in the need for the development of novel approaches

Applied Advanced Error Control Coding for General Purpose Representation and Association Machine Systems

General-Purpose Representation and Association Machine (GPRAM) is proposed to be focusing on computations in terms of variation and flexibility, rather than precision and speed. GPRAM system has a vague representation and has no predefined tasks. With several important lessons learned from error control coding, neuroscience and human visual system, we investigate several types of error control codes, including Hamming code and Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes, and extend them to different directions. While in error control codes, solely XOR logic gate is used to connect different nodes. Inspired by bio-systems and Turbo codes, we suggest and study non-linear codes with expanded operations, such as codes including AND and OR gates which raises the problem of prior-probabilities mismatching. Prior discussions about critical challenges in designing codes and iterative decoding for non-equiprobable symbols may pave the way for a more comprehensive understanding of bio-signal processing. The limitation of XOR operation in iterative decoding with non-equiprobable symbols is described and can be potentially resolved by applying quasi-XOR operation and intermediate transformation layer. Constructing codes for non-equiprobable symbols with the former approach cannot satisfyingly perform with regarding to error correction capability. Probabilistic messages for sum-product algorithm using XOR, AND, and OR operations with non-equiprobable symbols are further computed. The primary motivation for the constructing codes is to establish the GPRAM system rather than to conduct error control coding per se. The GPRAM system is fundamentally developed by applying various operations with substantial over-complete basis. This system is capable of continuously achieving better and simpler approximations for complex tasks. The approaches of decoding LDPC codes with non-equiprobable binary symbols are discussed due to the aforementioned prior-probabilities mismatching problem. The traditional Tanner graph should be modified because of the distinction of message passing to information bits and to parity check bits from check nodes. In other words, the message passing along two directions are identical in conventional Tanner graph, while the message along the forward direction and backward direction are different in our case. A method of optimizing signal constellation is described, which is able to maximize the channel mutual information. A simple Image Processing Unit (IPU) structure is proposed for GPRAM system, to which images are inputted. The IPU consists of a randomly constructed LDPC code, an iterative decoder, a switch, and scaling and decision device. The quality of input images has been severely deteriorated for the purpose of mimicking visual information variability (VIV) experienced in human visual systems. The IPU is capable of (a) reliably recognizing digits from images of which quality is extremely inadequate; (b) achieving similar hyper-acuity performance comparing to human visual system; and (c) significantly improving the recognition rate with applying randomly constructed LDPC code, which is not specifically optimized for the tasks

Flexible Sparse Learning of Feature Subspaces

It is widely observed that the performances of many traditional statistical learning methods degenerate when confronted with high-dimensional data. One promising approach to prevent this downfall is to identify the intrinsic low-dimensional spaces where the true signals embed and to pursue the learning process on these informative feature subspaces. This thesis focuses on the development of flexible sparse learning methods of feature subspaces for classification. Motivated by the success of some existing methods, we aim at learning informative feature subspaces for high-dimensional data of complex nature with better flexibility, sparsity and scalability. The first part of this thesis is inspired by the success of distance metric learning in casting flexible feature transformations by utilizing local information. We propose a nonlinear sparse metric learning algorithm using a boosting-based nonparametric solution to address metric learning problem for high-dimensional data, named as the sDist algorithm. Leveraged a rank-one decomposition of the symmetric positive semi-definite weight matrix of the Mahalanobis distance metric, we restructure a hard global optimization problem into a forward stage-wise learning of weak learners through a gradient boosting algorithm. In each step, the algorithm progressively learns a sparse rank-one update of the weight matrix by imposing an L-1 regularization. Nonlinear feature mappings are adaptively learned by a hierarchical expansion of interactions integrated within the boosting framework. Meanwhile, an early stopping rule is imposed to control the overall complexity of the learned metric. As a result, without relying on computationally intensive tools, our approach automatically guarantees three desirable properties of the final metric: positive semi-definiteness, low rank and element-wise sparsity. Numerical experiments show that our learning model compares favorably with the state-of-the-art methods in the current literature of metric learning. The second problem arises from the observation of high instability and feature selection bias when applying online methods to highly sparse data of large dimensionality for sparse learning problem. Due to the heterogeneity in feature sparsity, existing truncation-based methods incur slow convergence and high variance. To mitigate this problem, we introduce a stabilized truncated stochastic gradient descent algorithm. We employ a soft-thresholding scheme on the weight vector where the imposed shrinkage is adaptive to the amount of information available in each feature. The variability in the resulted sparse weight vector is further controlled by stability selection integrated with the informative truncation. To facilitate better convergence, we adopt an annealing strategy on the truncation rate. We show that, when the true parameter space is of low dimension, the stabilization with annealing strategy helps to achieve lower regret bound in expectation

A novel approach to handwritten character recognition

A number of new techniques and approaches for off-line handwritten character recognition are presented which individually make significant advancements in the field. First. an outline-based vectorization algorithm is described which gives improved accuracy in producing vector representations of the pen strokes used to draw characters. Later. Vectorization and other types of preprocessing are criticized and an approach to recognition is suggested which avoids separate preprocessing stages by incorporating them into later stages. Apart from the increased speed of this approach. it allows more effective alteration of the character images since more is known about them at the later stages. It also allows the possibility of alterations being corrected if they are initially detrimental to recognition. A new feature measurement. the Radial Distance/Sector Area feature. is presented which is highly robust. tolerant to noise. distortion and style variation. and gives high accuracy results when used for training and testing in a statistical or neural classifier. A very powerful classifier is therefore obtained for recognizing correctly segmented characters. The segmentation task is explored in a simple system of integrated over-segmentation. Character classification and approximate dictionary checking. This can be extended to a full system for handprinted word recognition. In addition to the advancements made by these methods. a powerful new approach to handwritten character recognition is proposed as a direction for future research. This proposal combines the ideas and techniques developed in this thesis in a hierarchical network of classifier modules to achieve context-sensitive. off-line recognition of handwritten text. A new type of "intelligent" feedback is used to direct the search to contextually sensible classifications. A powerful adaptive segmentation system is proposed which. when used as the bottom layer in the hierarchical network. allows initially incorrect segmentations to be adjusted according to the hypotheses of the higher level context modules