945 research outputs found
A coherent structure approach for parameter estimation in Lagrangian Data Assimilation
We introduce a data assimilation method to estimate model parameters with observations of passive tracers by directly assimilating Lagrangian Coherent Structures. Our approach differs from the usual Lagrangian Data Assimilation approach, where parameters are estimated based on tracer trajectories. We employ the Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) framework to avoid computing the likelihood function of the coherent structure, which is usually unavailable. We solve the ABC by a Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) method, and use Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to identify the coherent patterns from tracer trajectory data. Our new method shows remarkably improved results compared to the bootstrap particle filter when the physical model exhibits chaotic advection
Audio-Visual Speaker Tracking: Progress, Challenges, and Future Directions
Audio-visual speaker tracking has drawn increasing attention over the past
few years due to its academic values and wide application. Audio and visual
modalities can provide complementary information for localization and tracking.
With audio and visual information, the Bayesian-based filter can solve the
problem of data association, audio-visual fusion and track management. In this
paper, we conduct a comprehensive overview of audio-visual speaker tracking. To
our knowledge, this is the first extensive survey over the past five years. We
introduce the family of Bayesian filters and summarize the methods for
obtaining audio-visual measurements. In addition, the existing trackers and
their performance on AV16.3 dataset are summarized. In the past few years, deep
learning techniques have thrived, which also boosts the development of audio
visual speaker tracking. The influence of deep learning techniques in terms of
measurement extraction and state estimation is also discussed. At last, we
discuss the connections between audio-visual speaker tracking and other areas
such as speech separation and distributed speaker tracking
Extended Object Tracking: Introduction, Overview and Applications
This article provides an elaborate overview of current research in extended
object tracking. We provide a clear definition of the extended object tracking
problem and discuss its delimitation to other types of object tracking. Next,
different aspects of extended object modelling are extensively discussed.
Subsequently, we give a tutorial introduction to two basic and well used
extended object tracking approaches - the random matrix approach and the Kalman
filter-based approach for star-convex shapes. The next part treats the tracking
of multiple extended objects and elaborates how the large number of feasible
association hypotheses can be tackled using both Random Finite Set (RFS) and
Non-RFS multi-object trackers. The article concludes with a summary of current
applications, where four example applications involving camera, X-band radar,
light detection and ranging (lidar), red-green-blue-depth (RGB-D) sensors are
highlighted.Comment: 30 pages, 19 figure
Approximate inference methods in probabilistic machine learning and Bayesian statistics
This thesis develops new methods for efficient approximate inference in probabilistic models. Such models are routinely used in different fields, yet they remain computationally challenging as they involve high-dimensional integrals. We propose different approximate inference approaches addressing some challenges in probabilistic machine learning and Bayesian statistics. First, we present a Bayesian framework for genome-wide inference of DNA methylation levels and devise an efficient particle filtering and smoothing algorithm that can be used to identify differentially methylated regions between case and control groups. Second, we present a scalable inference approach for state space models by combining variational methods with sequential Monte Carlo sampling. The method is applied to self-exciting point process models that allow for flexible dynamics in the latent intensity function. Third, a new variational density motivated by copulas is developed. This new variational family can be beneficial compared with Gaussian approximations, as illustrated on examples with Bayesian neural networks. Lastly, we make some progress in a gradient-based adaptation of Hamiltonian Monte Carlo samplers by maximizing an approximation of the proposal entropy
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Formally justified and modular Bayesian inference for probabilistic programs
Probabilistic modelling offers a simple and coherent framework to describe the
real world in the face of uncertainty. Furthermore, by applying Bayes' rule
it is possible to use probabilistic models to make inferences about the state of
the world from partial observations. While traditionally probabilistic models
were constructed on paper, more recently the approach of probabilistic
programming enables users to write the models in executable languages resembling
computer programs and to freely mix them with deterministic code.
It has long been recognised that the semantics of programming languages is
complicated and the intuitive understanding that programmers have is often
inaccurate, resulting in difficult to understand bugs and unexpected program
behaviours. Programming languages are therefore studied in a rigorous way using
formal languages with mathematically defined semantics. Traditionally formal
semantics of probabilistic programs are defined using exact inference results,
but in practice exact Bayesian inference is not tractable and approximate
methods are used instead, posing a question of how the results of these
algorithms relate to the exact results. Correctness of such approximate methods
is usually argued somewhat less rigorously, without reference to a formal
semantics.
In this dissertation we formally develop denotational semantics for
probabilistic programs that correspond to popular sampling algorithms often used
in practice. The semantics is defined for an expressive typed lambda calculus
with higher-order functions and inductive types, extended with probabilistic
effects for sampling and conditioning, allowing continuous distributions and
unbounded likelihoods. It makes crucial use of the recently developed formalism
of quasi-Borel spaces to bring all these elements together. We provide semantics
corresponding to several variants of Markov chain Monte Carlo and Sequential
Monte Carlo methods and formally prove a notion of correctness for these
algorithms in the context of probabilistic programming.
We also show that the semantic construction can be directly mapped to an
implementation using established functional programming abstractions called
monad transformers. We develop a compact Haskell library for probabilistic
programming closely corresponding to the semantic construction, giving users a
high level of assurance in the correctness of the implementation. We also
demonstrate on a collection of benchmarks that the library offers performance
competitive with existing systems of similar scope.
An important property of our construction, both the semantics and the
implementation, is the high degree of modularity it offers. All the inference
algorithms are constructed by combining small building blocks in a setup where
the type system ensures correctness of compositions. We show that with basic
building blocks corresponding to vanilla Metropolis-Hastings and Sequential
Monte Carlo we can implement more advanced algorithms known in the literature,
such as Resample-Move Sequential Monte Carlo, Particle Marginal
Metropolis-Hastings, and Sequential Monte Carlo squared. These implementations
are very concise, reducing the effort required to produce them and the scope for
bugs. On top of that, our modular construction enables in some cases
deterministic testing of randomised inference algorithms, further increasing
reliability of the implementation.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Cambridge Trust, Cambridge-Tuebingen programm
Novel data association methods for online multiple human tracking
PhD ThesisVideo-based multiple human tracking has played a crucial role in many applications
such as intelligent video surveillance, human behavior analysis, and
health-care systems. The detection based tracking framework has become
the dominant paradigm in this research eld, and the major task is to accurately
perform the data association between detections across the frames.
However, online multiple human tracking, which merely relies on the detections
given up to the present time for the data association, becomes more
challenging with noisy detections, missed detections, and occlusions. To
address these challenging problems, there are three novel data association
methods for online multiple human tracking are presented in this thesis,
which are online group-structured dictionary learning, enhanced detection
reliability and multi-level cooperative fusion.
The rst proposed method aims to address the noisy detections and
occlusions. In this method, sequential Monte Carlo probability hypothesis
density (SMC-PHD) ltering is the core element for accomplishing the
tracking task, where the measurements are produced by the detection based
tracking framework. To enhance the measurement model, a novel adaptive
gating strategy is developed to aid the classi cation of measurements. In
addition, online group-structured dictionary learning with a maximum voting
method is proposed to estimate robustly the target birth intensity. It
enables the new-born targets in the tracking process to be accurately initialized
from noisy sensor measurements. To improve the adaptability of the
group-structured dictionary to target appearance changes, the simultaneous
codeword optimization (SimCO) algorithm is employed for the dictionary
update.
The second proposed method relates to accurate measurement selection
of detections, which is further to re ne the noisy detections prior to the tracking
pipeline. In order to achieve more reliable measurements in the Gaussian
mixture (GM)-PHD ltering process, a global-to-local enhanced con dence
rescoring strategy is proposed by exploiting the classi cation power of a mask
region-convolutional neural network (R-CNN). Then, an improved pruning
algorithm namely soft-aggregated non-maximal suppression (Soft-ANMS) is
devised to further enhance the selection step. In addition, to avoid the misuse
of ambiguous measurements in the tracking process, person re-identi cation
(ReID) features driven by convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are integrated
to model the target appearances.
The third proposed method focuses on addressing the issues of missed
detections and occlusions. This method integrates two human detectors
with di erent characteristics (full-body and body-parts) in the GM-PHD
lter, and investigates their complementary bene ts for tracking multiple
targets. For each detector domain, a novel discriminative correlation matching
(DCM) model for integration in the feature-level fusion is proposed, and
together with spatio-temporal information is used to reduce the ambiguous
identity associations in the GM-PHD lter. Moreover, a robust fusion
center is proposed within the decision-level fusion to mitigate the sensitivity
of missed detections in the fusion process, thereby improving the fusion
performance and tracking consistency.
The e ectiveness of these proposed methods are investigated using the
MOTChallenge benchmark, which is a framework for the standardized evaluation
of multiple object tracking methods. Detailed evaluations on challenging
video datasets, as well as comparisons with recent state-of-the-art
techniques, con rm the improved multiple human tracking performance
Measuring blood flow and pro-inflammatory changes in the rabbit aorta
Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease that develops as a consequence of progressive entrapment of low density lipoprotein, fibrous proteins and inflammatory cells in the arterial intima. Once triggered, a myriad of inflammatory and atherogenic factors mediate disease progression. However, the role of pro-inflammatory activity in the initiation of atherogenesis and its relation to altered mechanical stresses acting on the arterial wall is unclear. Estimation of wall shear stress (WSS) and the inflammatory mediator NF-κB is consequently useful. In this thesis novel ultrasound tools for accurate measurement of spatiotemporally varying 2D and 3D blood flow, with and without the use of contrast agents, have been developed. This allowed for the first time accurate, broad-view quantification of WSS around branches of the rabbit abdominal aorta. A thorough review of the evidence for a relationship between flow, NF-κB and disease was performed which highlighted discrepancies in the current literature and was used to guide the study design. Subsequently, methods for the measurement and colocalization of the spatial distribution of NF-κB, arterial permeability and nuclear morphology in the aorta of New Zealand White rabbits were developed. It was demonstrated that endothelial pro-inflammatory changes are spatially correlated with patterns of WSS, nuclear morphology and arterial permeability in vivo in the rabbit descending and abdominal aorta. The data are consistent with a causal chain between WSS, macromolecule uptake, inflammation and disease, and with the hypothesis that lipids are deposited first, through flow-mediated naturally occurring transmigration that, in excessive amounts, leads to subsequent inflammation and disease.Open Acces
THE TOOLS AND MONTE CARLO WORKING GROUP Summary Report from the Les Houches 2009 Workshop on TeV Colliders
This is the summary and introduction to the proceedings contributions for the
Les Houches 2009 "Tools and Monte Carlo" working group.Comment: 144 Pages. Workshop site
http://wwwlapp.in2p3.fr/conferences/LesHouches/Houches2009/ . Conveners were
Butterworth, Maltoni, Moortgat, Richardson, Schumann and Skand
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