Labeling the Features Not the Samples: Efficient Video Classification with Minimal Supervision

Feature selection is essential for effective visual recognition. We propose an efficient joint classifier learning and feature selection method that discovers sparse, compact representations of input features from a vast sea of candidates, with an almost unsupervised formulation. Our method requires only the following knowledge, which we call the \emph{feature sign}---whether or not a particular feature has on average stronger values over positive samples than over negatives. We show how this can be estimated using as few as a single labeled training sample per class. Then, using these feature signs, we extend an initial supervised learning problem into an (almost) unsupervised clustering formulation that can incorporate new data without requiring ground truth labels. Our method works both as a feature selection mechanism and as a fully competitive classifier. It has important properties, low computational cost and excellent accuracy, especially in difficult cases of very limited training data. We experiment on large-scale recognition in video and show superior speed and performance to established feature selection approaches such as AdaBoost, Lasso, greedy forward-backward selection, and powerful classifiers such as SVM.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1411.771

Multimodal Hierarchical Dirichlet Process-based Active Perception

In this paper, we propose an active perception method for recognizing object categories based on the multimodal hierarchical Dirichlet process (MHDP). The MHDP enables a robot to form object categories using multimodal information, e.g., visual, auditory, and haptic information, which can be observed by performing actions on an object. However, performing many actions on a target object requires a long time. In a real-time scenario, i.e., when the time is limited, the robot has to determine the set of actions that is most effective for recognizing a target object. We propose an MHDP-based active perception method that uses the information gain (IG) maximization criterion and lazy greedy algorithm. We show that the IG maximization criterion is optimal in the sense that the criterion is equivalent to a minimization of the expected Kullback--Leibler divergence between a final recognition state and the recognition state after the next set of actions. However, a straightforward calculation of IG is practically impossible. Therefore, we derive an efficient Monte Carlo approximation method for IG by making use of a property of the MHDP. We also show that the IG has submodular and non-decreasing properties as a set function because of the structure of the graphical model of the MHDP. Therefore, the IG maximization problem is reduced to a submodular maximization problem. This means that greedy and lazy greedy algorithms are effective and have a theoretical justification for their performance. We conducted an experiment using an upper-torso humanoid robot and a second one using synthetic data. The experimental results show that the method enables the robot to select a set of actions that allow it to recognize target objects quickly and accurately. The results support our theoretical outcomes.Comment: submitte

Greedy Representative Selection for Unsupervised Data Analysis

In recent years, the advance of information and communication technologies has allowed the storage and transfer of massive amounts of data. The availability of this overwhelming amount of data stimulates a growing need to develop fast and accurate algorithms to discover useful information hidden in the data. This need is even more acute for unsupervised data, which lacks information about the categories of different instances. This dissertation addresses a crucial problem in unsupervised data analysis, which is the selection of representative instances and/or features from the data. This problem can be generally defined as the selection of the most representative columns of a data matrix, which is formally known as the Column Subset Selection (CSS) problem. Algorithms for column subset selection can be directly used for data analysis or as a pre-processing step to enhance other data mining algorithms, such as clustering. The contributions of this dissertation can be summarized as outlined below. First, a fast and accurate algorithm is proposed to greedily select a subset of columns of a data matrix such that the reconstruction error of the matrix based on the subset of selected columns is minimized. The algorithm is based on a novel recursive formula for calculating the reconstruction error, which allows the development of time and memory-efficient algorithms for greedy column subset selection. Experiments on real data sets demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithms in comparison to the state-of-the-art methods for column subset selection. Second, a kernel-based algorithm is presented for column subset selection. The algorithm greedily selects representative columns using information about their pairwise similarities. The algorithm can also calculate a Nyström approximation for a large kernel matrix based on the subset of selected columns. In comparison to different Nyström methods, the greedy Nyström method has been empirically shown to achieve significant improvements in approximating kernel matrices, with minimum overhead in run time. Third, two algorithms are proposed for fast approximate k-means and spectral clustering. These algorithms employ the greedy column subset selection method to embed all data points in the subspace of a few representative points, where the clustering is performed. The approximate algorithms run much faster than their exact counterparts while achieving comparable clustering performance. Fourth, a fast and accurate greedy algorithm for unsupervised feature selection is proposed. The algorithm is an application of the greedy column subset selection method presented in this dissertation. Similarly, the features are greedily selected such that the reconstruction error of the data matrix is minimized. Experiments on benchmark data sets show that the greedy algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art methods for unsupervised feature selection in the clustering task. Finally, the dissertation studies the connection between the column subset selection problem and other related problems in statistical data analysis, and it presents a unified framework which allows the use of the greedy algorithms presented in this dissertation to solve different related problems

SAFS: A Deep Feature Selection Approach for Precision Medicine

In this paper, we propose a new deep feature selection method based on deep architecture. Our method uses stacked auto-encoders for feature representation in higher-level abstraction. We developed and applied a novel feature learning approach to a specific precision medicine problem, which focuses on assessing and prioritizing risk factors for hypertension (HTN) in a vulnerable demographic subgroup (African-American). Our approach is to use deep learning to identify significant risk factors affecting left ventricular mass indexed to body surface area (LVMI) as an indicator of heart damage risk. The results show that our feature learning and representation approach leads to better results in comparison with others