93 research outputs found
Numerical Linear Algebra applications in Archaeology: the seriation and the photometric stereo problems
The aim of this thesis is to explore the application of Numerical Linear Algebra to Archaeology. An ordering problem called the seriation problem, used for dating findings and/or artifacts deposits, is analysed in terms of graph theory. In particular, a Matlab implementation of an algorithm for spectral seriation, based on the use of the Fiedler vector of the Laplacian matrix associated with the problem, is presented. We consider bipartite graphs for describing the seriation problem, since the interrelationship between the units (i.e. archaeological sites) to be reordered, can be described in terms of these graphs. In our archaeological metaphor of seriation, the two disjoint nodes sets into which the vertices of a bipartite graph can be divided, represent the excavation sites and the artifacts found inside
them.
Since it is a difficult task to determine the closest bipartite network to a given one, we describe how a starting network can be approximated by a bipartite one by solving a sequence of fairly simple optimization problems.
Another numerical problem related to Archaeology is the 3D reconstruction of the shape of an object from a set of digital pictures. In particular, the Photometric Stereo (PS) photographic technique is considered
Toward a multilevel representation of protein molecules: comparative approaches to the aggregation/folding propensity problem
This paper builds upon the fundamental work of Niwa et al. [34], which
provides the unique possibility to analyze the relative aggregation/folding
propensity of the elements of the entire Escherichia coli (E. coli) proteome in
a cell-free standardized microenvironment. The hardness of the problem comes
from the superposition between the driving forces of intra- and inter-molecule
interactions and it is mirrored by the evidences of shift from folding to
aggregation phenotypes by single-point mutations [10]. Here we apply several
state-of-the-art classification methods coming from the field of structural
pattern recognition, with the aim to compare different representations of the
same proteins gathered from the Niwa et al. data base; such representations
include sequences and labeled (contact) graphs enriched with chemico-physical
attributes. By this comparison, we are able to identify also some interesting
general properties of proteins. Notably, (i) we suggest a threshold around 250
residues discriminating "easily foldable" from "hardly foldable" molecules
consistent with other independent experiments, and (ii) we highlight the
relevance of contact graph spectra for folding behavior discrimination and
characterization of the E. coli solubility data. The soundness of the
experimental results presented in this paper is proved by the statistically
relevant relationships discovered among the chemico-physical description of
proteins and the developed cost matrix of substitution used in the various
discrimination systems.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, 46 reference
Classifying sequences by the optimized dissimilarity space embedding approach: a case study on the solubility analysis of the E. coli proteome
We evaluate a version of the recently-proposed classification system named
Optimized Dissimilarity Space Embedding (ODSE) that operates in the input space
of sequences of generic objects. The ODSE system has been originally presented
as a classification system for patterns represented as labeled graphs. However,
since ODSE is founded on the dissimilarity space representation of the input
data, the classifier can be easily adapted to any input domain where it is
possible to define a meaningful dissimilarity measure. Here we demonstrate the
effectiveness of the ODSE classifier for sequences by considering an
application dealing with the recognition of the solubility degree of the
Escherichia coli proteome. Solubility, or analogously aggregation propensity,
is an important property of protein molecules, which is intimately related to
the mechanisms underlying the chemico-physical process of folding. Each protein
of our dataset is initially associated with a solubility degree and it is
represented as a sequence of symbols, denoting the 20 amino acid residues. The
herein obtained computational results, which we stress that have been achieved
with no context-dependent tuning of the ODSE system, confirm the validity and
generality of the ODSE-based approach for structured data classification.Comment: 10 pages, 49 reference
TSP--Infrastructure for the Traveling Salesperson Problem
The traveling salesperson (or, salesman) problem (TSP) is a well known and important combinatorial optimization problem. The goal is to find the shortest tour that visits each city in a given list exactly once and then returns to the starting city. Despite this simple problem statement, solving the TSP is difficult since it belongs to the class of NP-complete problems. The importance of the TSP arises besides from its theoretical appeal from the variety of its applications. Typical applications in operations research include vehicle routing, computer wiring, cutting wallpaper and job sequencing. The main application in statistics is combinatorial data analysis, e.g., reordering rows and columns of data matrices or identifying clusters. In this paper, we introduce the R package TSP which provides a basic infrastructure for handling and solving the traveling salesperson problem. The package features S3 classes for specifying a TSP and its (possibly optimal) solution as well as several heuristics to find good solutions. In addition, it provides an interface to Concorde, one of the best exact TSP solvers currently available.
Spectral reordering of a range-dependent weighted random graph
Reordering under a random graph hypothesis can be regarded as an extension of clustering and fits into the general area of data mining. Here, we consider a generalization of Grindrod's model and show how an existing spectral reordering algorithm that has arisen in a number of areas may be interpreted from a maximum likelihood range-dependent random graph viewpoint. Looked at this way, the spectral algorithm, which uses eigenvector information from the graph Laplacian, is found to be automatically tuned to an exponential edge density. The connection is precise for optimal reorderings, but is weaker when approximate reorderings are computed via relaxation. We illustrate the performance of the spectral algorithm in the weighted random graph context and give experimental evidence that it can be successful for other edge densities. We conclude by applying the algorithm to a data set from the biological literature that describes cortical connectivity in the cat brain
Shuffled total least squares
Linear regression with shuffled labels and with a noisy latent design matrix
arises in many correspondence recovery problems. We propose a total
least-squares approach to the problem of estimating the underlying true
permutation and provide an upper bound to the normalized Procrustes quadratic
loss of the estimator. We also provide an iterative algorithm to approximate
the estimator and demonstrate its performance on simulated data
Designing labeled graph classifiers by exploiting the R\'enyi entropy of the dissimilarity representation
Representing patterns as labeled graphs is becoming increasingly common in
the broad field of computational intelligence. Accordingly, a wide repertoire
of pattern recognition tools, such as classifiers and knowledge discovery
procedures, are nowadays available and tested for various datasets of labeled
graphs. However, the design of effective learning procedures operating in the
space of labeled graphs is still a challenging problem, especially from the
computational complexity viewpoint. In this paper, we present a major
improvement of a general-purpose classifier for graphs, which is conceived on
an interplay between dissimilarity representation, clustering,
information-theoretic techniques, and evolutionary optimization algorithms. The
improvement focuses on a specific key subroutine devised to compress the input
data. We prove different theorems which are fundamental to the setting of the
parameters controlling such a compression operation. We demonstrate the
effectiveness of the resulting classifier by benchmarking the developed
variants on well-known datasets of labeled graphs, considering as distinct
performance indicators the classification accuracy, computing time, and
parsimony in terms of structural complexity of the synthesized classification
models. The results show state-of-the-art standards in terms of test set
accuracy and a considerable speed-up for what concerns the computing time.Comment: Revised versio
- …