3,324 research outputs found
Auxiliary Guided Autoregressive Variational Autoencoders
Generative modeling of high-dimensional data is a key problem in machine
learning. Successful approaches include latent variable models and
autoregressive models. The complementary strengths of these approaches, to
model global and local image statistics respectively, suggest hybrid models
that encode global image structure into latent variables while autoregressively
modeling low level detail. Previous approaches to such hybrid models restrict
the capacity of the autoregressive decoder to prevent degenerate models that
ignore the latent variables and only rely on autoregressive modeling. Our
contribution is a training procedure relying on an auxiliary loss function that
controls which information is captured by the latent variables and what is left
to the autoregressive decoder. Our approach can leverage arbitrarily powerful
autoregressive decoders, achieves state-of-the art quantitative performance
among models with latent variables, and generates qualitatively convincing
samples.Comment: Published as a conference paper at ECML-PKDD 201
A Cosmic Watershed: the WVF Void Detection Technique
On megaparsec scales the Universe is permeated by an intricate filigree of
clusters, filaments, sheets and voids, the Cosmic Web. For the understanding of
its dynamical and hierarchical history it is crucial to identify objectively
its complex morphological components. One of the most characteristic aspects is
that of the dominant underdense Voids, the product of a hierarchical process
driven by the collapse of minor voids in addition to the merging of large ones.
In this study we present an objective void finder technique which involves a
minimum of assumptions about the scale, structure and shape of voids. Our void
finding method, the Watershed Void Finder (WVF), is based upon the Watershed
Transform, a well-known technique for the segmentation of images. Importantly,
the technique has the potential to trace the existing manifestations of a void
hierarchy. The basic watershed transform is augmented by a variety of
correction procedures to remove spurious structure resulting from sampling
noise. This study contains a detailed description of the WVF. We demonstrate
how it is able to trace and identify, relatively parameter free, voids and
their surrounding (filamentary and planar) boundaries. We test the technique on
a set of Kinematic Voronoi models, heuristic spatial models for a cellular
distribution of matter. Comparison of the WVF segmentations of low noise and
high noise Voronoi models with the quantitatively known spatial characteristics
of the intrinsic Voronoi tessellation shows that the size and shape of the
voids are succesfully retrieved. WVF manages to even reproduce the full void
size distribution function.Comment: 24 pages, 15 figures, MNRAS accepted, for full resolution, see
http://www.astro.rug.nl/~weygaert/tim1publication/watershed.pd
Multifractal analysis of discretized X-ray CT images for the characterization of soil macropore structures
A correct statistical model of soil pore structure can be critical for understanding flow and transport processes in soils, and creating synthetic soil pore spaces for hypothetical and model testing, and evaluating similarity of pore spaces of different soils. Advanced visualization techniques such as X-ray computed tomography (CT) offer new opportunities of exploring heterogeneity of soil properties at horizon or aggregate scales. Simple fractal models such as fractional Brownian motion that have been proposed to capture the complex behavior of soil spatial variation at field scale rarely simulate irregularity patterns displayed by spatial series of soil properties. The objective of this work was to use CT data to test the hypothesis that soil pore structure at the horizon scale may be represented by multifractal models. X-ray CT scans of twelve, water-saturated, 20-cm long soil columns with diameters of 7.5 cm were analyzed. A reconstruction algorithm was applied to convert the X-ray CT data into a stack of 1480 grayscale digital images with a voxel resolution of 110 microns and a cross-sectional size of 690 × 690 pixels. The images were binarized and the spatial series of the percentage of void space vs. depth was analyzed to evaluate the applicability of the multifractal model. The series of depth-dependent macroporosity values exhibited a well-defined multifractal structure that was revealed by singularity and Rényi spectra. The long-range dependencies in these series were parameterized by the Hurst exponent. Values of the Hurst exponent close to one were observed indicating the strong persistence in variations of porosity with depth. The multifractal modeling of soil macropore structure can be an efficient method for parameterizing and simulating the vertical spatial heterogeneity of soil pore space
A Comparison on Features Efficiency in Automatic Reconstruction of Archeological Broken Objects
Automatic reconstruction of archeological broken objects is an invaluable tool for restoration purposes and personnel. In this paper, we assume that broken pieces have similar characteristics on their common boundaries, when they are correctly combined. In this paper we work in a framework for the full reconstruction of the original objects using texture and surface design information on the sherd. The texture of a band outside the border of
pieces is predicted by inpainting and texture synthesis methods. Feature values are derived from these original and predicted images of pieces. We present a quantitative and qualitative comparison over a large set of features and over a large set of synthetic and real archeological broken objects
- …