4,057 research outputs found
Recent advances in directional statistics
Mainstream statistical methodology is generally applicable to data observed
in Euclidean space. There are, however, numerous contexts of considerable
scientific interest in which the natural supports for the data under
consideration are Riemannian manifolds like the unit circle, torus, sphere and
their extensions. Typically, such data can be represented using one or more
directions, and directional statistics is the branch of statistics that deals
with their analysis. In this paper we provide a review of the many recent
developments in the field since the publication of Mardia and Jupp (1999),
still the most comprehensive text on directional statistics. Many of those
developments have been stimulated by interesting applications in fields as
diverse as astronomy, medicine, genetics, neurology, aeronautics, acoustics,
image analysis, text mining, environmetrics, and machine learning. We begin by
considering developments for the exploratory analysis of directional data
before progressing to distributional models, general approaches to inference,
hypothesis testing, regression, nonparametric curve estimation, methods for
dimension reduction, classification and clustering, and the modelling of time
series, spatial and spatio-temporal data. An overview of currently available
software for analysing directional data is also provided, and potential future
developments discussed.Comment: 61 page
Learning the dynamics and time-recursive boundary detection of deformable objects
We propose a principled framework for recursively segmenting deformable objects across a sequence
of frames. We demonstrate the usefulness of this method on left ventricular segmentation across a cardiac
cycle. The approach involves a technique for learning the system dynamics together with methods of
particle-based smoothing as well as non-parametric belief propagation on a loopy graphical model capturing
the temporal periodicity of the heart. The dynamic system state is a low-dimensional representation
of the boundary, and the boundary estimation involves incorporating curve evolution into recursive state
estimation. By formulating the problem as one of state estimation, the segmentation at each particular
time is based not only on the data observed at that instant, but also on predictions based on past and future
boundary estimates. Although the paper focuses on left ventricle segmentation, the method generalizes
to temporally segmenting any deformable object
Bayesian astrostatistics: a backward look to the future
This perspective chapter briefly surveys: (1) past growth in the use of
Bayesian methods in astrophysics; (2) current misconceptions about both
frequentist and Bayesian statistical inference that hinder wider adoption of
Bayesian methods by astronomers; and (3) multilevel (hierarchical) Bayesian
modeling as a major future direction for research in Bayesian astrostatistics,
exemplified in part by presentations at the first ISI invited session on
astrostatistics, commemorated in this volume. It closes with an intentionally
provocative recommendation for astronomical survey data reporting, motivated by
the multilevel Bayesian perspective on modeling cosmic populations: that
astronomers cease producing catalogs of estimated fluxes and other source
properties from surveys. Instead, summaries of likelihood functions (or
marginal likelihood functions) for source properties should be reported (not
posterior probability density functions), including nontrivial summaries (not
simply upper limits) for candidate objects that do not pass traditional
detection thresholds.Comment: 27 pp, 4 figures. A lightly revised version of a chapter in
"Astrostatistical Challenges for the New Astronomy" (Joseph M. Hilbe, ed.,
Springer, New York, forthcoming in 2012), the inaugural volume for the
Springer Series in Astrostatistics. Version 2 has minor clarifications and an
additional referenc
Task adapted reconstruction for inverse problems
The paper considers the problem of performing a task defined on a model
parameter that is only observed indirectly through noisy data in an ill-posed
inverse problem. A key aspect is to formalize the steps of reconstruction and
task as appropriate estimators (non-randomized decision rules) in statistical
estimation problems. The implementation makes use of (deep) neural networks to
provide a differentiable parametrization of the family of estimators for both
steps. These networks are combined and jointly trained against suitable
supervised training data in order to minimize a joint differentiable loss
function, resulting in an end-to-end task adapted reconstruction method. The
suggested framework is generic, yet adaptable, with a plug-and-play structure
for adjusting both the inverse problem and the task at hand. More precisely,
the data model (forward operator and statistical model of the noise) associated
with the inverse problem is exchangeable, e.g., by using neural network
architecture given by a learned iterative method. Furthermore, any task that is
encodable as a trainable neural network can be used. The approach is
demonstrated on joint tomographic image reconstruction, classification and
joint tomographic image reconstruction segmentation
Network Uncertainty Informed Semantic Feature Selection for Visual SLAM
In order to facilitate long-term localization using a visual simultaneous
localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithm, careful feature selection can help
ensure that reference points persist over long durations and the runtime and
storage complexity of the algorithm remain consistent. We present SIVO
(Semantically Informed Visual Odometry and Mapping), a novel
information-theoretic feature selection method for visual SLAM which
incorporates semantic segmentation and neural network uncertainty into the
feature selection pipeline. Our algorithm selects points which provide the
highest reduction in Shannon entropy between the entropy of the current state
and the joint entropy of the state, given the addition of the new feature with
the classification entropy of the feature from a Bayesian neural network. Each
selected feature significantly reduces the uncertainty of the vehicle state and
has been detected to be a static object (building, traffic sign, etc.)
repeatedly with a high confidence. This selection strategy generates a sparse
map which can facilitate long-term localization. The KITTI odometry dataset is
used to evaluate our method, and we also compare our results against ORB_SLAM2.
Overall, SIVO performs comparably to the baseline method while reducing the map
size by almost 70%.Comment: Published in: 2019 16th Conference on Computer and Robot Vision (CRV
A Tutorial on Bayesian Nonparametric Models
A key problem in statistical modeling is model selection, how to choose a
model at an appropriate level of complexity. This problem appears in many
settings, most prominently in choosing the number ofclusters in mixture models
or the number of factors in factor analysis. In this tutorial we describe
Bayesian nonparametric methods, a class of methods that side-steps this issue
by allowing the data to determine the complexity of the model. This tutorial is
a high-level introduction to Bayesian nonparametric methods and contains
several examples of their application.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figure
Dimension Reduction in Nonparametric Discriminant Analysis
A dimension reduction method in kernel discriminant analysis is presented, based on the concept of dimension reduction subspace. Examples of application are discussed.
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