505 research outputs found
Multi-Target Prediction: A Unifying View on Problems and Methods
Multi-target prediction (MTP) is concerned with the simultaneous prediction
of multiple target variables of diverse type. Due to its enormous application
potential, it has developed into an active and rapidly expanding research field
that combines several subfields of machine learning, including multivariate
regression, multi-label classification, multi-task learning, dyadic prediction,
zero-shot learning, network inference, and matrix completion. In this paper, we
present a unifying view on MTP problems and methods. First, we formally discuss
commonalities and differences between existing MTP problems. To this end, we
introduce a general framework that covers the above subfields as special cases.
As a second contribution, we provide a structured overview of MTP methods. This
is accomplished by identifying a number of key properties, which distinguish
such methods and determine their suitability for different types of problems.
Finally, we also discuss a few challenges for future research
A Comparative Study of Pairwise Learning Methods based on Kernel Ridge Regression
Many machine learning problems can be formulated as predicting labels for a
pair of objects. Problems of that kind are often referred to as pairwise
learning, dyadic prediction or network inference problems. During the last
decade kernel methods have played a dominant role in pairwise learning. They
still obtain a state-of-the-art predictive performance, but a theoretical
analysis of their behavior has been underexplored in the machine learning
literature.
In this work we review and unify existing kernel-based algorithms that are
commonly used in different pairwise learning settings, ranging from matrix
filtering to zero-shot learning. To this end, we focus on closed-form efficient
instantiations of Kronecker kernel ridge regression. We show that independent
task kernel ridge regression, two-step kernel ridge regression and a linear
matrix filter arise naturally as a special case of Kronecker kernel ridge
regression, implying that all these methods implicitly minimize a squared loss.
In addition, we analyze universality, consistency and spectral filtering
properties. Our theoretical results provide valuable insights in assessing the
advantages and limitations of existing pairwise learning methods.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1606.0427
Semi-Supervised Learning, Causality and the Conditional Cluster Assumption
While the success of semi-supervised learning (SSL) is still not fully
understood, Sch\"olkopf et al. (2012) have established a link to the principle
of independent causal mechanisms. They conclude that SSL should be impossible
when predicting a target variable from its causes, but possible when predicting
it from its effects. Since both these cases are somewhat restrictive, we extend
their work by considering classification using cause and effect features at the
same time, such as predicting disease from both risk factors and symptoms.
While standard SSL exploits information contained in the marginal distribution
of all inputs (to improve the estimate of the conditional distribution of the
target given inputs), we argue that in our more general setting we should use
information in the conditional distribution of effect features given causal
features. We explore how this insight generalises the previous understanding,
and how it relates to and can be exploited algorithmically for SSL.Comment: 36th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (2020)
(Previously presented at the NeurIPS 2019 workshop "Do the right thing":
machine learning and causal inference for improved decision making,
Vancouver, Canada.
Gaussian process domain experts for model adaptation in facial behavior analysis
We present a novel approach for supervised domain adaptation that is based upon the probabilistic framework of Gaussian processes (GPs). Specifically, we introduce domain-specific GPs as local experts for facial expression classification from face images. The adaptation of the classifier is facilitated in probabilistic fashion by conditioning the target expert on multiple source experts. Furthermore, in contrast to existing adaptation approaches, we also learn a target expert from available target data solely. Then, a single and confident classifier is obtained by combining the predictions from multiple experts based on their confidence. Learning of the model is efficient and requires no retraining/reweighting of the source classifiers. We evaluate the proposed approach on two publicly available datasets for multi-class (MultiPIE) and multi-label (DISFA) facial expression classification. To this end, we perform adaptation of two contextual factors: where (view) and who (subject). We show in our experiments that the proposed approach consistently outperforms both source and target classifiers, while using as few as 30 target examples. It also outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches for supervised domain adaptation
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