A theoretical framework for supervised learning from regions

Supervised learning is investigated, when the data are represented not only by labeled points but also labeled regions of the input space. In the limit case, such regions degenerate to single points and the proposed approach changes back to the classical learning context. The adopted framework entails the minimization of a functional obtained by introducing a loss function that involves such regions. An additive regularization term is expressed via differential operators that model the smoothness properties of the desired input/output relationship. Representer theorems are given, proving that the optimization problem associated to learning from labeled regions has a unique solution, which takes on the form of a linear combination of kernel functions determined by the differential operators together with the regions themselves. As a relevant situation, the case of regions given by multi-dimensional intervals (i.e., “boxes”) is investigated, which models prior knowledge expressed by logical propositions

Inverse Density as an Inverse Problem: The Fredholm Equation Approach

In this paper we address the problem of estimating the ratio $\frac{q}{p}$ where $p$ is a density function and $q$ is another density, or, more generally an arbitrary function. Knowing or approximating this ratio is needed in various problems of inference and integration, in particular, when one needs to average a function with respect to one probability distribution, given a sample from another. It is often referred as {\it importance sampling} in statistical inference and is also closely related to the problem of {\it covariate shift} in transfer learning as well as to various MCMC methods. It may also be useful for separating the underlying geometry of a space, say a manifold, from the density function defined on it. Our approach is based on reformulating the problem of estimating $\frac{q}{p}$ as an inverse problem in terms of an integral operator corresponding to a kernel, and thus reducing it to an integral equation, known as the Fredholm problem of the first kind. This formulation, combined with the techniques of regularization and kernel methods, leads to a principled kernel-based framework for constructing algorithms and for analyzing them theoretically. The resulting family of algorithms (FIRE, for Fredholm Inverse Regularized Estimator) is flexible, simple and easy to implement. We provide detailed theoretical analysis including concentration bounds and convergence rates for the Gaussian kernel in the case of densities defined on $\R^d$, compact domains in $\R^d$ and smooth $d$-dimensional sub-manifolds of the Euclidean space. We also show experimental results including applications to classification and semi-supervised learning within the covariate shift framework and demonstrate some encouraging experimental comparisons. We also show how the parameters of our algorithms can be chosen in a completely unsupervised manner.Comment: Fixing a few typos in last versio

Reproducing Kernel Space Method for the Solution of Linear Fredholm Integro-Differential Equations and Analysis of Stability

We present a numerical method to solve the linear Fredholm integro-differential equation in reproducing kernel space. A simple algorithm is given to obtain the approximate solutions of the equation. Through the comparison of approximate and true solution, we can find that the method can effectively solve the linear Fredholm integro-differential equation. At the same time the numerical solution of the equation is stable

Application of Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space Method for Solving a Class of Nonlinear Integral Equations

A new approach based on the Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space Method is proposed to approximate the solution of the second-kind nonlinear integral equations. In this case, the Gram-Schmidt process is substituted by another process so that a satisfactory result is obtained. In this method, the solution is expressed in the form of a series. Furthermore, the convergence of the proposed technique is proved. In order to illustrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the method, four sample integral equations arising in electromagnetics are solved via the given algorithm