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318 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2010

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A New Algorithm for Improving the Resolution of Cryo-EM Density Maps

Hirsch, M., Schölkopf, B., Habeck, M.

In Research in Computational Molecular Biology, Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics, Vol. 6044 , pages: 174-188, (Editors: B Berger), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 14th International Conference on Research in Computational Molecular Biology (RECOMB), May 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) plays an increasingly prominent role in structure elucidation of macromolecular assemblies. Advances in experimental instrumentation and computational power have spawned numerous cryo-EM studies of large biomolecular complexes resulting in the reconstruction of three-dimensional density maps at intermediate and low resolution. In this resolution range, identification and interpretation of structural elements and modeling of biomolecular structure with atomic detail becomes problematic. In this paper, we present a novel algorithm that enhances the resolution of intermediate- and low-resolution density maps. Our underlying assumption is to model the low-resolution density map as a blurred and possibly noise-corrupted version of an unknown high-resolution map that we seek to recover by deconvolution. By exploiting the nonnegativity of both the high-resolution map and blur kernel we derive multiplicative updates reminiscent of those used in nonnegative matrix factorization. Our framework allows for easy incorporation of additional prior knowledge such as smoothness and sparseness, on both the sharpened density map and the blur kernel. A probabilistic formulation enables us to derive updates for the hyperparameters, therefore our approach has no parameter that needs adjustment. We apply the algorithm to simulated three-dimensional electron microscopic data. We show that our method provides better resolved density maps when compared with B-factor sharpening, especially in the presence of noise. Moreover, our method can use additional information provided by homologous structures, which helps to improve the resolution even further.

ei

Web DOI [BibTex]

2010

ei Hirsch, M., Schölkopf, B., Habeck, M. A New Algorithm for Improving the Resolution of Cryo-EM Density Maps In Research in Computational Molecular Biology, Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics, Vol. 6044 , pages: 174-188, (Editors: B Berger), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 14th International Conference on Research in Computational Molecular Biology (RECOMB), May 2010 (inproceedings)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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Movement Templates for Learning of Hitting and Batting

Kober, J., Mülling, K., Krömer, O., Lampert, C., Schölkopf, B., Peters, J.

In Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2010), pages: 853-858, IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2010 (inproceedings)

ei

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Kober, J., Mülling, K., Krömer, O., Lampert, C., Schölkopf, B., Peters, J. Movement Templates for Learning of Hitting and Batting In Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2010), pages: 853-858, IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2010 (inproceedings)

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

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Experiments with Motor Primitives to learn Table Tennis

Peters, J., Mülling, K., Kober, J.

In Experimental Robotics, pages: 1-13, (Editors: Khatib, O. , V. Kumar, G. Sukhatme), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 12th International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER), March 2010 (inproceedings)

ei

Web [BibTex]

ei Peters, J., Mülling, K., Kober, J. Experiments with Motor Primitives to learn Table Tennis In Experimental Robotics, pages: 1-13, (Editors: Khatib, O. , V. Kumar, G. Sukhatme), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 12th International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER), March 2010 (inproceedings)

Web [BibTex]

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Causality: Objectives and Assessment

Guyon, I., Janzing, D., Schölkopf, B.

In JMLR Workshop and Conference Proceedings: Volume 6 , pages: 1-42, (Editors: I Guyon and D Janzing and B Schölkopf), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, Causality: Objectives and Assessment (NIPS Workshop) , February 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
The NIPS 2008 workshop on causality provided a forum for researchers from different horizons to share their view on causal modeling and address the difficult question of assessing causal models. There has been a vivid debate on properly separating the notion of causality from particular models such as graphical models, which have been dominating the field in the past few years. Part of the workshop was dedicated to discussing the results of a challenge, which offered a wide variety of applications of causal modeling. We have regrouped in these proceedings the best papers presented. Most lectures were videotaped or recorded. All information regarding the challenge and the lectures are found at http://www.clopinet.com/isabelle/Projects/NIPS2008/. This introduction provides a synthesis of the findings and a gentle introduction to causality topics, which are the object of active research.

ei

Web [BibTex]

ei Guyon, I., Janzing, D., Schölkopf, B. Causality: Objectives and Assessment In JMLR Workshop and Conference Proceedings: Volume 6 , pages: 1-42, (Editors: I Guyon and D Janzing and B Schölkopf), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, Causality: Objectives and Assessment (NIPS Workshop) , February 2010 (inproceedings)

Web [BibTex]

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Leveraging Sequence Classification by Taxonomy-based Multitask Learning

Widmer, C., Leiva, J., Altun, Y., Rätsch, G.

In Research in Computational Molecular Biology, LNCS, Vol. 6044, pages: 522-534, (Editors: B Berger), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 14th Annual International Conference, RECOMB, 2010 (inproceedings)

ei

DOI [BibTex]

ei Widmer, C., Leiva, J., Altun, Y., Rätsch, G. Leveraging Sequence Classification by Taxonomy-based Multitask Learning In Research in Computational Molecular Biology, LNCS, Vol. 6044, pages: 522-534, (Editors: B Berger), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 14th Annual International Conference, RECOMB, 2010 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

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Probabilistic latent variable models for distinguishing between cause and effect

Mooij, J., Stegle, O., Janzing, D., Zhang, K., Schölkopf, B.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 23, pages: 1687-1695, (Editors: J Lafferty and CKI Williams and J Shawe-Taylor and RS Zemel and A Culotta), Curran, Red Hook, NY, USA, 24th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We propose a novel method for inferring whether X causes Y or vice versa from joint observations of X and Y. The basic idea is to model the observed data using probabilistic latent variable models, which incorporate the effects of unobserved noise. To this end, we consider the hypothetical effect variable to be a function of the hypothetical cause variable and an independent noise term (not necessarily additive). An important novel aspect of our work is that we do not restrict the model class, but instead put general non-parametric priors on this function and on the distribution of the cause. The causal direction can then be inferred by using standard Bayesian model selection. We evaluate our approach on synthetic data and real-world data and report encouraging results.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Mooij, J., Stegle, O., Janzing, D., Zhang, K., Schölkopf, B. Probabilistic latent variable models for distinguishing between cause and effect In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 23, pages: 1687-1695, (Editors: J Lafferty and CKI Williams and J Shawe-Taylor and RS Zemel and A Culotta), Curran, Red Hook, NY, USA, 24th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2010 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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JigPheno: Semantic Feature Extraction in biological images

Karaletsos, T., Stegle, O., Winn, J., Borgwardt, K.

In NIPS, Workshop on Machine Learning in Computational Biology, 2010 (inproceedings)

ei

[BibTex]

ei Karaletsos, T., Stegle, O., Winn, J., Borgwardt, K. JigPheno: Semantic Feature Extraction in biological images In NIPS, Workshop on Machine Learning in Computational Biology, 2010 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Nonparametric Tree Graphical Models

Song, L., Gretton, A., Guestrin, C.

In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics, Volume 9 , pages: 765-772, (Editors: YW Teh and M Titterington ), JMLR, AISTATS, 2010 (inproceedings)

ei

PDF [BibTex]

ei Song, L., Gretton, A., Guestrin, C. Nonparametric Tree Graphical Models In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics, Volume 9 , pages: 765-772, (Editors: YW Teh and M Titterington ), JMLR, AISTATS, 2010 (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

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Novel machine learning methods for MHC Class I binding prediction

Widmer, C., Toussaint, N., Altun, Y., Kohlbacher, O., Rätsch, G.

In Pattern Recognition in Bioinformatics, pages: 98-109, (Editors: TMH Dijkstra and E Tsivtsivadze and E Marchiori and T Heskes), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 5th IAPR International Conference, PRIB, 2010 (inproceedings)

ei

DOI [BibTex]

ei Widmer, C., Toussaint, N., Altun, Y., Kohlbacher, O., Rätsch, G. Novel machine learning methods for MHC Class I binding prediction In Pattern Recognition in Bioinformatics, pages: 98-109, (Editors: TMH Dijkstra and E Tsivtsivadze and E Marchiori and T Heskes), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 5th IAPR International Conference, PRIB, 2010 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

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Bootstrapping Apprenticeship Learning

Boularias, A., Chaib-Draa, B.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 23, pages: 289-297, (Editors: Lafferty, J. , C. K.I. Williams, J. Shawe-Taylor, R. S. Zemel, A. Culotta), Curran, Red Hook, NY, USA, Twenty-Fourth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We consider the problem of apprenticeship learning where the examples, demonstrated by an expert, cover only a small part of a large state space. Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) provides an efficient tool for generalizing the demonstration, based on the assumption that the expert is maximizing a utility function that is a linear combination of state-action features. Most IRL algorithms use a simple Monte Carlo estimation to approximate the expected feature counts under the expert's policy. In this paper, we show that the quality of the learned policies is highly sensitive to the error in estimating the feature counts. To reduce this error, we introduce a novel approach for bootstrapping the demonstration by assuming that: (i), the expert is (near-)optimal, and (ii), the dynamics of the system is known. Empirical results on gridworlds and car racing problems show that our approach is able to learn good policies from a small number of demonstrations.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Boularias, A., Chaib-Draa, B. Bootstrapping Apprenticeship Learning In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 23, pages: 289-297, (Editors: Lafferty, J. , C. K.I. Williams, J. Shawe-Taylor, R. S. Zemel, A. Culotta), Curran, Red Hook, NY, USA, Twenty-Fourth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2010 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Distinguishing Causes from Effects using Nonlinear Acyclic Causal Models

Zhang, K., Hyvärinen, A.

In JMLR Workshop and Conference Proceedings, Volume 6, pages: 157-164, (Editors: I Guyon and D Janzing and B Schölkopf), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, Causality: Objectives and Assessment (NIPS Workshop), 2010 (inproceedings)

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Zhang, K., Hyvärinen, A. Distinguishing Causes from Effects using Nonlinear Acyclic Causal Models In JMLR Workshop and Conference Proceedings, Volume 6, pages: 157-164, (Editors: I Guyon and D Janzing and B Schölkopf), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, Causality: Objectives and Assessment (NIPS Workshop), 2010 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Characteristic Kernels on Structured Domains Excel in Robotics and Human Action Recognition

Danafar, S., Gretton, A., Schmidhuber, J.

In Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases, LNCS Vol. 6321, pages: 264-279, (Editors: JL Balcázar and F Bonchi and A Gionis and M Sebag), Springer, Berlin, Germany, ECML PKDD, 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Embedding probability distributions into a sufficiently rich (characteristic) reproducing kernel Hilbert space enables us to take higher order statistics into account. Characterization also retains effective statistical relation between inputs and outputs in regression and classification. Recent works established conditions for characteristic kernels on groups and semigroups. Here we study characteristic kernels on periodic domains, rotation matrices, and histograms. Such structured domains are relevant for homogeneity testing, forward kinematics, forward dynamics, inverse dynamics, etc. Our kernel-based methods with tailored characteristic kernels outperform previous methods on robotics problems and also on a widely used benchmark for recognition of human actions in videos.

ei

DOI [BibTex]

ei Danafar, S., Gretton, A., Schmidhuber, J. Characteristic Kernels on Structured Domains Excel in Robotics and Human Action Recognition In Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases, LNCS Vol. 6321, pages: 264-279, (Editors: JL Balcázar and F Bonchi and A Gionis and M Sebag), Springer, Berlin, Germany, ECML PKDD, 2010 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

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Movement extraction by detecting dynamics switches and repetitions

Chiappa, S., Peters, J.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 23, pages: 388-396, (Editors: Lafferty, J. , C. K.I. Williams, J. Shawe-Taylor, R. S. Zemel, A. Culotta), Curran, Red Hook, NY, USA, Twenty-Fourth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Many time-series such as human movement data consist of a sequence of basic actions, e.g., forehands and backhands in tennis. Automatically extracting and characterizing such actions is an important problem for a variety of different applications. In this paper, we present a probabilistic segmentation approach in which an observed time-series is modeled as a concatenation of segments corresponding to different basic actions. Each segment is generated through a noisy transformation of one of a few hidden trajectories representing different types of movement, with possible time re-scaling. We analyze three different approximation methods for dealing with model intractability, and demonstrate how the proposed approach can successfully segment table tennis movements recorded using a robot arm as haptic input device.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Chiappa, S., Peters, J. Movement extraction by detecting dynamics switches and repetitions In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 23, pages: 388-396, (Editors: Lafferty, J. , C. K.I. Williams, J. Shawe-Taylor, R. S. Zemel, A. Culotta), Curran, Red Hook, NY, USA, Twenty-Fourth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2010 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Space-Variant Single-Image Blind Deconvolution for Removing Camera Shake

Harmeling, S., Hirsch, M., Schölkopf, B.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 23, pages: 829-837, (Editors: J Lafferty and CKI Williams and J Shawe-Taylor and RS Zemel and A Culotta), Curran, Red Hook, NY, USA, 24th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Modelling camera shake as a space-invariant convolution simplifies the problem of removing camera shake, but often insufficiently models actual motion blur such as those due to camera rotation and movements outside the sensor plane or when objects in the scene have different distances to the camera. In an effort to address these limitations, (i) we introduce a taxonomy of camera shakes, (ii) we build on a recently introduced framework for space-variant filtering by Hirsch et al. and a fast algorithm for single image blind deconvolution for space-invariant filters by Cho and Lee to construct a method for blind deconvolution in the case of space-variant blur, and (iii), we present an experimental setup for evaluation that allows us to take images with real camera shake while at the same time recording the spacevariant point spread function corresponding to that blur. Finally, we demonstrate that our method is able to deblur images degraded by spatially-varying blur originating from real camera shake, even without using additionally motion sensor information.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Harmeling, S., Hirsch, M., Schölkopf, B. Space-Variant Single-Image Blind Deconvolution for Removing Camera Shake In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 23, pages: 829-837, (Editors: J Lafferty and CKI Williams and J Shawe-Taylor and RS Zemel and A Culotta), Curran, Red Hook, NY, USA, 24th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2010 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Getting lost in space: Large sample analysis of the resistance distance

von Luxburg, U., Radl, A., Hein, M.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 23, pages: 2622-2630, (Editors: Lafferty, J. , C. K.I. Williams, J. Shawe-Taylor, R. S. Zemel, A. Culotta), Curran, Red Hook, NY, USA, Twenty-Fourth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
The commute distance between two vertices in a graph is the expected time it takes a random walk to travel from the first to the second vertex and back. We study the behavior of the commute distance as the size of the underlying graph increases. We prove that the commute distance converges to an expression that does not take into account the structure of the graph at all and that is completely meaningless as a distance function on the graph. Consequently, the use of the raw commute distance for machine learning purposes is strongly discouraged for large graphs and in high dimensions. As an alternative we introduce the amplified commute distance that corrects for the undesired large sample effects.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei von Luxburg, U., Radl, A., Hein, M. Getting lost in space: Large sample analysis of the resistance distance In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 23, pages: 2622-2630, (Editors: Lafferty, J. , C. K.I. Williams, J. Shawe-Taylor, R. S. Zemel, A. Culotta), Curran, Red Hook, NY, USA, Twenty-Fourth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2010 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Distinguishing between cause and effect

Mooij, J., Janzing, D.

In JMLR Workshop and Conference Proceedings: Volume 6, pages: 147-156, (Editors: Guyon, I. , D. Janzing, B. Schölkopf), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, Causality: Objectives and Assessment (NIPS Workshop) , 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We describe eight data sets that together formed the CauseEffectPairs task in the Causality Challenge #2: Pot-Luck competition. Each set consists of a sample of a pair of statistically dependent random variables. One variable is known to cause the other one, but this information was hidden from the participants; the task was to identify which of the two variables was the cause and which one the effect, based upon the observed sample. The data sets were chosen such that we expect common agreement on the ground truth. Even though part of the statistical dependences may also be due to hidden common causes, common sense tells us that there is a significant cause-effect relation between the two variables in each pair. We also present baseline results using three different causal inference methods.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Mooij, J., Janzing, D. Distinguishing between cause and effect In JMLR Workshop and Conference Proceedings: Volume 6, pages: 147-156, (Editors: Guyon, I. , D. Janzing, B. Schölkopf), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, Causality: Objectives and Assessment (NIPS Workshop) , 2010 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Kernel Methods for Detecting the Direction of Time Series

Peters, J., Janzing, D., Gretton, A., Schölkopf, B.

In Advances in Data Analysis, Data Handling and Business Intelligence, pages: 57-66, (Editors: A Fink and B Lausen and W Seidel and A Ultsch), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 32nd Annual Conference of the Gesellschaft f{\"u}r Klassifikation e.V. (GfKl), 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We propose two kernel based methods for detecting the time direction in empirical time series. First we apply a Support Vector Machine on the finite-dimensional distributions of the time series (classification method) by embedding these distributions into a Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space. For the ARMA method we fit the observed data with an autoregressive moving average process and test whether the regression residuals are statistically independent of the past values. Whenever the dependence in one direction is significantly weaker than in the other we infer the former to be the true one. Both approaches were able to detect the direction of the true generating model for simulated data sets. We also applied our tests to a large number of real world time series. The ARMA method made a decision for a significant fraction of them, in which it was mostly correct, while the classification method did not perform as well, but still exceeded chance level.

ei

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Peters, J., Janzing, D., Gretton, A., Schölkopf, B. Kernel Methods for Detecting the Direction of Time Series In Advances in Data Analysis, Data Handling and Business Intelligence, pages: 57-66, (Editors: A Fink and B Lausen and W Seidel and A Ultsch), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 32nd Annual Conference of the Gesellschaft f{\"u}r Klassifikation e.V. (GfKl), 2010 (inproceedings)

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

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Switched Latent Force Models for Movement Segmentation

Alvarez, M., Peters, J., Schölkopf, B., Lawrence, N.

In Advances in neural information processing systems 23, pages: 55-63, (Editors: J Lafferty and CKI Williams and J Shawe-Taylor and RS Zemel and A Culotta), Curran, Red Hook, NY, USA, 24th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Latent force models encode the interaction between multiple related dynamical systems in the form of a kernel or covariance function. Each variable to be modeled is represented as the output of a differential equation and each differential equation is driven by a weighted sum of latent functions with uncertainty given by a Gaussian process prior. In this paper we consider employing the latent force model framework for the problem of determining robot motor primitives. To deal with discontinuities in the dynamical systems or the latent driving force we introduce an extension of the basic latent force model, that switches between different latent functions and potentially different dynamical systems. This creates a versatile representation for robot movements that can capture discrete changes and non-linearities in the dynamics. We give illustrative examples on both synthetic data and for striking movements recorded using a BarrettWAM robot as haptic input device. Our inspiration is robot motor primitives, but we expect our model to have wide application for dynamical systems including models for human motion capture data and systems biology.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Alvarez, M., Peters, J., Schölkopf, B., Lawrence, N. Switched Latent Force Models for Movement Segmentation In Advances in neural information processing systems 23, pages: 55-63, (Editors: J Lafferty and CKI Williams and J Shawe-Taylor and RS Zemel and A Culotta), Curran, Red Hook, NY, USA, 24th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2010 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Adhesion recovery and passive peeling in a wall climbing robot using adhesives

Kute, C., Murphy, M. P., Mengüç, Y., Sitti, M.

In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2010 IEEE International Conference on, pages: 2797-2802, 2010 (inproceedings)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Kute, C., Murphy, M. P., Mengüç, Y., Sitti, M. Adhesion recovery and passive peeling in a wall climbing robot using adhesives In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2010 IEEE International Conference on, pages: 2797-2802, 2010 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Are reaching movements planned in kinematic or dynamic coordinates?

Ellmer, A., Schaal, S.

In Abstracts of Neural Control of Movement Conference (NCM 2010), Naples, Florida, 2010, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Whether human reaching movements are planned and optimized in kinematic (task space) or dynamic (joint or muscle space) coordinates is still an issue of debate. The first hypothesis implies that a planner produces a desired end-effector position at each point in time during the reaching movement, whereas the latter hypothesis includes the dynamics of the muscular-skeletal control system to produce a continuous end-effector trajectory. Previous work by Wolpert et al (1995) showed that when subjects were led to believe that their straight reaching paths corresponded to curved paths as shown on a computer screen, participants adapted the true path of their hand such that they would visually perceive a straight line in visual space, despite that they actually produced a curved path. These results were interpreted as supporting the stance that reaching trajectories are planned in kinematic coordinates. However, this experiment could only demonstrate that adaptation to altered paths, i.e. the position of the end-effector, did occur, but not that the precise timing of end-effector position was equally planned, i.e., the trajectory. Our current experiment aims at filling this gap by explicitly testing whether position over time, i.e. velocity, is a property of reaching movements that is planned in kinematic coordinates. In the current experiment, the velocity profiles of cursor movements corresponding to the participant's hand motions were skewed either to the left or to the right; the path itself was left unaltered. We developed an adaptation paradigm, where the skew of the velocity profile was introduced gradually and participants reported no awareness of any manipulation. Preliminary results indicate that the true hand motion of participants did not alter, i.e. there was no adaptation so as to counterbalance the introduced skew. However, for some participants, peak hand velocities were lowered for higher skews, which suggests that participants interpreted the manipulation as mere noise due to variance in their own movement. In summary, for a visuomotor transformation task, the hypothesis of a planned continuous end-effector trajectory predicts adaptation to a modified velocity profile. The current experiment found no systematic adaptation under such transformation, but did demonstrate an effect that is more in accordance that subjects could not perceive the manipulation and rather interpreted as an increase of noise.

am

[BibTex]

am Ellmer, A., Schaal, S. Are reaching movements planned in kinematic or dynamic coordinates? In Abstracts of Neural Control of Movement Conference (NCM 2010), Naples, Florida, 2010, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Absence of element specific ferromagnetism in Co doped ZnO investigated by soft X-ray resonant reflectivity

Goering, E., Brück, S., Tietze, T., Jakob, G., Gacic, M., Adrian, H.

In 200, Glasgow, Scotland, 2010 (inproceedings)

mms

DOI [BibTex]

mms Goering, E., Brück, S., Tietze, T., Jakob, G., Gacic, M., Adrian, H. Absence of element specific ferromagnetism in Co doped ZnO investigated by soft X-ray resonant reflectivity In 200, Glasgow, Scotland, 2010 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

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Probing the local magnetization dynamics in large systems with spatial inhomogeneity

Li, J, Lee, M.-S., Amaladass, E., He, W., Eimüller, T.

In 200, Glasgow, Scotland, 2010 (inproceedings)

mms

DOI [BibTex]

mms Li, J, Lee, M.-S., Amaladass, E., He, W., Eimüller, T. Probing the local magnetization dynamics in large systems with spatial inhomogeneity In 200, Glasgow, Scotland, 2010 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

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Wetting of grain boundaries in Al by the solid Al3Mg2 phase

Straumal, B. B., Baretzky, B., Kogtenkova, O. A., Straumal, A. B., Sidorenko, A. S.

In 45, pages: 2057-2061, Athens, Greek, 2010 (inproceedings)

mms

DOI [BibTex]

mms Straumal, B. B., Baretzky, B., Kogtenkova, O. A., Straumal, A. B., Sidorenko, A. S. Wetting of grain boundaries in Al by the solid Al3Mg2 phase In 45, pages: 2057-2061, Athens, Greek, 2010 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

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Damping of near-adiabatic magnetization dynamics by excitations of electron-hole pairs

Seib, J., Steiauf, D., Fähnle, M.

In 200, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2010 (inproceedings)

mms

DOI [BibTex]

mms Seib, J., Steiauf, D., Fähnle, M. Damping of near-adiabatic magnetization dynamics by excitations of electron-hole pairs In 200, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2010 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

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Comparison of linear and nonlinear buck converter models with varying compensator gain values for design optimization

Sattler, Michael, Lui, Yusi, Edrington, Chris S

In North American Power Symposium (NAPS), 2010, pages: 1-7, 2010 (inproceedings)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Sattler, Michael, Lui, Yusi, Edrington, Chris S Comparison of linear and nonlinear buck converter models with varying compensator gain values for design optimization In North American Power Symposium (NAPS), 2010, pages: 1-7, 2010 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Optimality in Neuromuscular Systems

Theodorou, E. A., Valero-Cuevas, F.

In 32nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Abstract? We provide an overview of optimal control meth- ods to nonlinear neuromuscular systems and discuss their lim- itations. Moreover we extend current optimal control methods to their application to neuromuscular models with realistically numerous musculotendons; as most prior work is limited to torque-driven systems. Recent work on computational motor control has explored the used of control theory and esti- mation as a conceptual tool to understand the underlying computational principles of neuromuscular systems. After all, successful biological systems regularly meet conditions for stability, robustness and performance for multiple classes of complex tasks. Among a variety of proposed control theory frameworks to explain this, stochastic optimal control has become a dominant framework to the point of being a standard computational technique to reproduce kinematic trajectories of reaching movements (see [12]) In particular, we demonstrate the application of optimal control to a neuromuscular model of the index finger with all seven musculotendons producing a tapping task. Our simu- lations include 1) a muscle model that includes force- length and force-velocity characteristics; 2) an anatomically plausible biomechanical model of the index finger that includes a tendi- nous network for the extensor mechanism and 3) a contact model that is based on a nonlinear spring-damper attached at the end effector of the index finger. We demonstrate that it is feasible to apply optimal control to systems with realistically large state vectors and conclude that, while optimal control is an adequate formalism to create computational models of neuro- musculoskeletal systems, there remain important challenges and limitations that need to be considered and overcome such as contact transitions, curse of dimensionality, and constraints on states and controls.

am

PDF [BibTex]

am Theodorou, E. A., Valero-Cuevas, F. Optimality in Neuromuscular Systems In 32nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

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Magnetization reversal of Fe/Gd multilayers on self-assembled arrays of nanospheres

Amaladass, E., Eimüller, T., Ludescher, B., Tyliszczak, T., Schütz, G.

In 200, Glasgow, Scotland, 2010 (inproceedings)

mms

DOI [BibTex]

mms Amaladass, E., Eimüller, T., Ludescher, B., Tyliszczak, T., Schütz, G. Magnetization reversal of Fe/Gd multilayers on self-assembled arrays of nanospheres In 200, Glasgow, Scotland, 2010 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

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Learning Policy Improvements with Path Integrals

Theodorou, E. A., Buchli, J., Schaal, S.

In International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS 2010), 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
With the goal to generate more scalable algo- rithms with higher efficiency and fewer open parameters, reinforcement learning (RL) has recently moved towards combining classi- cal techniques from optimal control and dy- namic programming with modern learning techniques from statistical estimation the- ory. In this vein, this paper suggests the framework of stochastic optimal control with path integrals to derive a novel approach to RL with parametrized policies. While solidly grounded in value function estimation and optimal control based on the stochastic Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equations, policy improvements can be transformed into an approximation problem of a path inte- gral which has no open parameters other than the exploration noise. The resulting algorithm can be conceived of as model- based, semi-model-based, or even model free, depending on how the learning problem is structured. Our new algorithm demon- strates interesting similarities with previous RL research in the framework of proba- bility matching and provides intuition why the slightly heuristically motivated proba- bility matching approach can actually per- form well. Empirical evaluations demon- strate significant performance improvements over gradient-based policy learning and scal- ability to high-dimensional control problems. We believe that Policy Improvement with Path Integrals (PI2) offers currently one of the most efficient, numerically robust, and easy to implement algorithms for RL based on trajectory roll-outs.

am

PDF [BibTex]

am Theodorou, E. A., Buchli, J., Schaal, S. Learning Policy Improvements with Path Integrals In International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS 2010), 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

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Learning optimal control solutions: a path integral approach

Theodorou, E., Schaal, S.

In Abstracts of Neural Control of Movement Conference (NCM 2010), Naples, Florida, 2010, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Investigating principles of human motor control in the framework of optimal control has had a long tradition in neural control of movement, and has recently experienced a new surge of investigations. Ideally, optimal control problems are addresses as a reinforcement learning (RL) problem, which would allow to investigate both the process of acquiring an optimal control solution as well as the solution itself. Unfortunately, the applicability of RL to complex neural and biomechanics systems has been largely impossible so far due to the computational difficulties that arise in high dimensional continuous state-action spaces. As a way out, research has focussed on computing optimal control solutions based on iterative optimal control methods that are based on linear and quadratic approximations of dynamical models and cost functions. These methods require perfect knowledge of the dynamics and cost functions while they are based on gradient and Newton optimization schemes. Their applicability is also restricted to low dimensional problems due to problematic convergence in high dimensions. Moreover, the process of computing the optimal solution is removed from the learning process that might be plausible in biology. In this work, we present a new reinforcement learning method for learning optimal control solutions or motor control. This method, based on the framework of stochastic optimal control with path integrals, has a very solid theoretical foundation, while resulting in surprisingly simple learning algorithms. It is also possible to apply this approach without knowledge of the system model, and to use a wide variety of complex nonlinear cost functions for optimization. We illustrate the theoretical properties of this approach and its applicability to learning motor control tasks for reaching movements and locomotion studies. We discuss its applicability to learning desired trajectories, variable stiffness control (co-contraction), and parameterized control policies. We also investigate the applicability to signal dependent noise control systems. We believe that the suggested method offers one of the easiest to use approaches to learning optimal control suggested in the literature so far, which makes it ideally suited for computational investigations of biological motor control.

am

[BibTex]

am Theodorou, E., Schaal, S. Learning optimal control solutions: a path integral approach In Abstracts of Neural Control of Movement Conference (NCM 2010), Naples, Florida, 2010, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Enhancing the performance of Bio-inspired adhesives

Chung, H., Glass, P., Sitti, M., Washburn, N. R.

In ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 240, 2010 (inproceedings)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Chung, H., Glass, P., Sitti, M., Washburn, N. R. Enhancing the performance of Bio-inspired adhesives In ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 240, 2010 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Control performance simulation in the design of a flapping wing micro-aerial vehicle

Hines, L. L., Arabagi, V., Sitti, M.

In Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on, pages: 1090-1095, 2010 (inproceedings)

pi

Project Page [BibTex]

pi Hines, L. L., Arabagi, V., Sitti, M. Control performance simulation in the design of a flapping wing micro-aerial vehicle In Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on, pages: 1090-1095, 2010 (inproceedings)

Project Page [BibTex]

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Contact angles by the solid-phase grain boundary wetting (coverage) in the Co-Cu system

Straumal, B. B., Kogtenkova, O. A., Straumal, A. B., Kuchyeyev, Y. O., Baretzky, B.

In 45, pages: 4271-4275, Glasgow, Scotland, 2010 (inproceedings)

mms

DOI [BibTex]

mms Straumal, B. B., Kogtenkova, O. A., Straumal, A. B., Kuchyeyev, Y. O., Baretzky, B. Contact angles by the solid-phase grain boundary wetting (coverage) in the Co-Cu system In 45, pages: 4271-4275, Glasgow, Scotland, 2010 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

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Unusual super-ductility at room temperature in an ultrafine-grained aluminum alloy

Valiev, R. Z., Murashkin, M. Y., Kilmametov, A., Straumal, B., Chinh, N. Q., Langdon, T.

In 45, pages: 4718-4724, Seattle, WA, USA, 2010 (inproceedings)

mms

DOI [BibTex]

mms Valiev, R. Z., Murashkin, M. Y., Kilmametov, A., Straumal, B., Chinh, N. Q., Langdon, T. Unusual super-ductility at room temperature in an ultrafine-grained aluminum alloy In 45, pages: 4718-4724, Seattle, WA, USA, 2010 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

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Demagnetization on the fs time-scale by the Elliott-Yafet mechanism

Steiauf, D., Illg, C., Fähnle, M.

In 200, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2010 (inproceedings)

mms

DOI [BibTex]

mms Steiauf, D., Illg, C., Fähnle, M. Demagnetization on the fs time-scale by the Elliott-Yafet mechanism In 200, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2010 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

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Constrained Accelerations for Controlled Geometric Reduction: Sagittal-Plane Decoupling for Bipedal Locomotion

Gregg, R., Righetti, L., Buchli, J., Schaal, S.

In 2010 10th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, pages: 1-7, IEEE, Nashville, USA, 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Energy-shaping control methods have produced strong theoretical results for asymptotically stable 3D bipedal dynamic walking in the literature. In particular, geometric controlled reduction exploits robot symmetries to control momentum conservation laws that decouple the sagittal-plane dynamics, which are easier to stabilize. However, the associated control laws require high-dimensional matrix inverses multiplied with complicated energy-shaping terms, often making these control theories difficult to apply to highly-redundant humanoid robots. This paper presents a first step towards the application of energy-shaping methods on real robots by casting controlled reduction into a framework of constrained accelerations for inverse dynamics control. By representing momentum conservation laws as constraints in acceleration space, we construct a general expression for desired joint accelerations that render the constraint surface invariant. By appropriately choosing an orthogonal projection, we show that the unconstrained (reduced) dynamics are decoupled from the constrained dynamics. Any acceleration-based controller can then be used to stabilize this planar subsystem, including passivity-based methods. The resulting control law is surprisingly simple and represents a practical way to employ control theoretic stability results in robotic platforms. Simulated walking of a 3D compass-gait biped show correspondence between the new and original controllers, and simulated motions of a 16-DOF humanoid demonstrate the applicability of this method.

am mg

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

am mg Gregg, R., Righetti, L., Buchli, J., Schaal, S. Constrained Accelerations for Controlled Geometric Reduction: Sagittal-Plane Decoupling for Bipedal Locomotion In 2010 10th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, pages: 1-7, IEEE, Nashville, USA, 2010 (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

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Variable impedance control - a reinforcement learning approach

Buchli, J., Theodorou, E., Stulp, F., Schaal, S.

In Robotics Science and Systems (2010), Zaragoza, Spain, June 27-30, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
One of the hallmarks of the performance, versatility, and robustness of biological motor control is the ability to adapt the impedance of the overall biomechanical system to different task requirements and stochastic disturbances. A transfer of this principle to robotics is desirable, for instance to enable robots to work robustly and safely in everyday human environments. It is, however, not trivial to derive variable impedance controllers for practical high DOF robotic tasks. In this contribution, we accomplish such gain scheduling with a reinforcement learning approach algorithm, PI2 (Policy Improvement with Path Integrals). PI2 is a model-free, sampling based learning method derived from first principles of optimal control. The PI2 algorithm requires no tuning of algorithmic parameters besides the exploration noise. The designer can thus fully focus on cost function design to specify the task. From the viewpoint of robotics, a particular useful property of PI2 is that it can scale to problems of many DOFs, so that RL on real robotic systems becomes feasible. We sketch the PI2 algorithm and its theoretical properties, and how it is applied to gain scheduling. We evaluate our approach by presenting results on two different simulated robotic systems, a 3-DOF Phantom Premium Robot and a 6-DOF Kuka Lightweight Robot. We investigate tasks where the optimal strategy requires both tuning of the impedance of the end-effector, and tuning of a reference trajectory. The results show that we can use path integral based RL not only for planning but also to derive variable gain feedback controllers in realistic scenarios. Thus, the power of variable impedance control is made available to a wide variety of robotic systems and practical applications.

am

link (url) [BibTex]

am Buchli, J., Theodorou, E., Stulp, F., Schaal, S. Variable impedance control - a reinforcement learning approach In Robotics Science and Systems (2010), Zaragoza, Spain, June 27-30, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Surface tension driven water strider robot using circular footpads

Ozcan, O., Wang, H., Taylor, J. D., Sitti, M.

In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2010 IEEE International Conference on, pages: 3799-3804, 2010 (inproceedings)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Ozcan, O., Wang, H., Taylor, J. D., Sitti, M. Surface tension driven water strider robot using circular footpads In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2010 IEEE International Conference on, pages: 3799-3804, 2010 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Inverse dynamics with optimal distribution of ground reaction forces for legged robot

Righetti, L., Buchli, J., Mistry, M., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots (CLAWAR), pages: 580-587, Nagoya, Japan, sep 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Contact interaction with the environment is crucial in the design of locomotion controllers for legged robots, to prevent slipping for example. Therefore, it is of great importance to be able to control the effects of the robots movements on the contact reaction forces. In this contribution, we extend a recent inverse dynamics algorithm for floating base robots to optimize the distribution of contact forces while achieving precise trajectory tracking. The resulting controller is algorithmically simple as compared to other approaches. Numerical simulations show that this result significantly increases the range of possible movements of a humanoid robot as compared to the previous inverse dynamics algorithm. We also present a simplification of the result where no inversion of the inertia matrix is needed which is particularly relevant for practical use on a real robot. Such an algorithm becomes interesting for agile locomotion of robots on difficult terrains where the contacts with the environment are critical, such as walking over rough or slippery terrain.

am mg

DOI [BibTex]

am mg Righetti, L., Buchli, J., Mistry, M., Schaal, S. Inverse dynamics with optimal distribution of ground reaction forces for legged robot In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots (CLAWAR), pages: 580-587, Nagoya, Japan, sep 2010 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

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The X-ray microscopy beamline UE46-PGM2 at BESSY

Follath, R., Schmidt, J. S., Weigand, M., Fauth, K.

In 10th International Conference on Synchrotron Radiation Instrumentation, 1234, pages: 323-326, AIP Conference Proceedings, American Institute of Physics, Melbourne, Australia, 2010 (inproceedings)

mms

DOI [BibTex]

mms Follath, R., Schmidt, J. S., Weigand, M., Fauth, K. The X-ray microscopy beamline UE46-PGM2 at BESSY In 10th International Conference on Synchrotron Radiation Instrumentation, 1234, pages: 323-326, AIP Conference Proceedings, American Institute of Physics, Melbourne, Australia, 2010 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

2007

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Towards compliant humanoids: an experimental assessment of suitable task space position/orientation controllers

Nakanishi, J., Mistry, M., Peters, J., Schaal, S.

In IROS 2007, 2007, pages: 2520-2527, (Editors: Grant, E. , T. C. Henderson), IEEE Service Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, November 2007 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Compliant control will be a prerequisite for humanoid robotics if these robots are supposed to work safely and robustly in human and/or dynamic environments. One view of compliant control is that a robot should control a minimal number of degrees-of-freedom (DOFs) directly, i.e., those relevant DOFs for the task, and keep the remaining DOFs maximally compliant, usually in the null space of the task. This view naturally leads to task space control. However, surprisingly few implementations of task space control can be found in actual humanoid robots. This paper makes a first step towards assessing the usefulness of task space controllers for humanoids by investigating which choices of controllers are available and what inherent control characteristics they have—this treatment will concern position and orientation control, where the latter is based on a quaternion formulation. Empirical evaluations on an anthropomorphic Sarcos master arm illustrate the robustness of the different controllers as well as the eas e of implementing and tuning them. Our extensive empirical results demonstrate that simpler task space controllers, e.g., classical resolved motion rate control or resolved acceleration control can be quite advantageous in face of inevitable modeling errors in model-based control, and that well chosen formulations are easy to implement and quite robust, such that they are useful for humanoids.

ei

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

2007

ei Nakanishi, J., Mistry, M., Peters, J., Schaal, S. Towards compliant humanoids: an experimental assessment of suitable task space position/orientation controllers In IROS 2007, 2007, pages: 2520-2527, (Editors: Grant, E. , T. C. Henderson), IEEE Service Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, November 2007 (inproceedings)

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

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Performance Stabilization and Improvement in Graph-based Semi-supervised Learning with Ensemble Method and Graph Sharpening

Choi, I., Shin, H.

In Korean Data Mining Society Conference, pages: 257-262, Korean Data Mining Society, Seoul, Korea, Korean Data Mining Society Conference, November 2007 (inproceedings)

ei

PDF [BibTex]

ei Choi, I., Shin, H. Performance Stabilization and Improvement in Graph-based Semi-supervised Learning with Ensemble Method and Graph Sharpening In Korean Data Mining Society Conference, pages: 257-262, Korean Data Mining Society, Seoul, Korea, Korean Data Mining Society Conference, November 2007 (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

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Discriminative Subsequence Mining for Action Classification

Nowozin, S., BakIr, G., Tsuda, K.

In ICCV 2007, pages: 1919-1923, IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, CA, USA, 11th IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, October 2007 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Recent approaches to action classification in videos have used sparse spatio-temporal words encoding local appearance around interesting movements. Most of these approaches use a histogram representation, discarding the temporal order among features. But this ordering information can contain important information about the action itself, e.g. consider the sport disciplines of hurdle race and long jump, where the global temporal order of motions (running, jumping) is important to discriminate between the two. In this work we propose to use a sequential representation which retains this temporal order. Further, we introduce Discriminative Subsequence Mining to find optimal discriminative subsequence patterns. In combination with the LPBoost classifier, this amounts to simultaneously learning a classification function and performing feature selection in the space of all possible feature sequences. The resulting classifier linearly combines a small number of interpretable decision functions, each checking for the presence of a single discriminative pattern. The classifier is benchmarked on the KTH action classification data set and outperforms the best known results in the literature.

ei

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Nowozin, S., BakIr, G., Tsuda, K. Discriminative Subsequence Mining for Action Classification In ICCV 2007, pages: 1919-1923, IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, CA, USA, 11th IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, October 2007 (inproceedings)

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

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A Hilbert Space Embedding for Distributions

Smola, A., Gretton, A., Song, L., Schölkopf, B.

In Algorithmic Learning Theory, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4754 , pages: 13-31, (Editors: M Hutter and RA Servedio and E Takimoto), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 18th International Conference on Algorithmic Learning Theory (ALT), October 2007 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We describe a technique for comparing distributions without the need for density estimation as an intermediate step. Our approach relies on mapping the distributions into a reproducing kernel Hilbert space. Applications of this technique can be found in two-sample tests, which are used for determining whether two sets of observations arise from the same distribution, covariate shift correction, local learning, measures of independence, and density estimation.

ei

PDF PDF DOI [BibTex]

ei Smola, A., Gretton, A., Song, L., Schölkopf, B. A Hilbert Space Embedding for Distributions In Algorithmic Learning Theory, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4754 , pages: 13-31, (Editors: M Hutter and RA Servedio and E Takimoto), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 18th International Conference on Algorithmic Learning Theory (ALT), October 2007 (inproceedings)

PDF PDF DOI [BibTex]

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Cluster Identification in Nearest-Neighbor Graphs

Maier, M., Hein, M., von Luxburg, U.

In ALT 2007, pages: 196-210, (Editors: Hutter, M. , R. A. Servedio, E. Takimoto), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 18th International Conference on Algorithmic Learning Theory, October 2007 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Assume we are given a sample of points from some underlying distribution which contains several distinct clusters. Our goal is to construct a neighborhood graph on the sample points such that clusters are ``identified‘‘: that is, the subgraph induced by points from the same cluster is connected, while subgraphs corresponding to different clusters are not connected to each other. We derive bounds on the probability that cluster identification is successful, and use them to predict ``optimal‘‘ values of k for the mutual and symmetric k-nearest-neighbor graphs. We point out different properties of the mutual and symmetric nearest-neighbor graphs related to the cluster identification problem.

ei

PDF PDF DOI [BibTex]

ei Maier, M., Hein, M., von Luxburg, U. Cluster Identification in Nearest-Neighbor Graphs In ALT 2007, pages: 196-210, (Editors: Hutter, M. , R. A. Servedio, E. Takimoto), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 18th International Conference on Algorithmic Learning Theory, October 2007 (inproceedings)

PDF PDF DOI [BibTex]

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Inducing Metric Violations in Human Similarity Judgements

Laub, J., Macke, J., Müller, K., Wichmann, F.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 19, pages: 777-784, (Editors: Schölkopf, B. , J. Platt, T. Hofmann), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, Twentieth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), September 2007 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Attempting to model human categorization and similarity judgements is both a very interesting but also an exceedingly difficult challenge. Some of the difficulty arises because of conflicting evidence whether human categorization and similarity judgements should or should not be modelled as to operate on a mental representation that is essentially metric. Intuitively, this has a strong appeal as it would allow (dis)similarity to be represented geometrically as distance in some internal space. Here we show how a single stimulus, carefully constructed in a psychophysical experiment, introduces l2 violations in what used to be an internal similarity space that could be adequately modelled as Euclidean. We term this one influential data point a conflictual judgement. We present an algorithm of how to analyse such data and how to identify the crucial point. Thus there may not be a strict dichotomy between either a metric or a non-metric internal space but rather degrees to which potentially large subsets of stimuli are represented metrically with a small subset causing a global violation of metricity.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Laub, J., Macke, J., Müller, K., Wichmann, F. Inducing Metric Violations in Human Similarity Judgements In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 19, pages: 777-784, (Editors: Schölkopf, B. , J. Platt, T. Hofmann), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, Twentieth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), September 2007 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Cross-Validation Optimization for Large Scale Hierarchical Classification Kernel Methods

Seeger, M.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 19, pages: 1233-1240, (Editors: Schölkopf, B. , J. Platt, T. Hofmann), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, Twentieth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), September 2007 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We propose a highly efficient framework for kernel multi-class models with a large and structured set of classes. Kernel parameters are learned automatically by maximizing the cross-validation log likelihood, and predictive probabilities are estimated. We demonstrate our approach on large scale text classification tasks with hierarchical class structure, achieving state-of-the-art results in an order of magnitude less time than previous work.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Seeger, M. Cross-Validation Optimization for Large Scale Hierarchical Classification Kernel Methods In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 19, pages: 1233-1240, (Editors: Schölkopf, B. , J. Platt, T. Hofmann), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, Twentieth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), September 2007 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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A Local Learning Approach for Clustering

Wu, M., Schölkopf, B.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 19, pages: 1529-1536, (Editors: B Schölkopf and J Platt and T Hofmann), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, 20th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), September 2007 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We present a local learning approach for clustering. The basic idea is that a good clustering result should have the property that the cluster label of each data point can be well predicted based on its neighboring data and their cluster labels, using current supervised learning methods. An optimization problem is formulated such that its solution has the above property. Relaxation and eigen-decomposition are applied to solve this optimization problem. We also briefly investigate the parameter selection issue and provide a simple parameter selection method for the proposed algorithm. Experimental results are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Wu, M., Schölkopf, B. A Local Learning Approach for Clustering In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 19, pages: 1529-1536, (Editors: B Schölkopf and J Platt and T Hofmann), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, 20th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), September 2007 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Branch and Bound for Semi-Supervised Support Vector Machines

Chapelle, O., Sindhwani, V., Keerthi, S.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 19, pages: 217-224, (Editors: Schölkopf, B. , J. Platt, T. Hofmann), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, Twentieth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), September 2007 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Semi-supervised SVMs (S3VMs) attempt to learn low-density separators by maximizing the margin over labeled and unlabeled examples. The associated optimization problem is non-convex. To examine the full potential of S3VMs modulo local minima problems in current implementations, we apply branch and bound techniques for obtaining exact, globally optimal solutions. Empirical evidence suggests that the globally optimal solution can return excellent generalization performance in situations where other implementations fail completely. While our current implementation is only applicable to small datasets, we discuss variants that can potentially lead to practically useful algorithms.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Chapelle, O., Sindhwani, V., Keerthi, S. Branch and Bound for Semi-Supervised Support Vector Machines In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 19, pages: 217-224, (Editors: Schölkopf, B. , J. Platt, T. Hofmann), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, Twentieth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), September 2007 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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A Kernel Method for the Two-Sample-Problem

Gretton, A., Borgwardt, K., Rasch, M., Schölkopf, B., Smola, A.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 19, pages: 513-520, (Editors: B Schölkopf and J Platt and T Hofmann), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, 20th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), September 2007 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We propose two statistical tests to determine if two samples are from different distributions. Our test statistic is in both cases the distance between the means of the two samples mapped into a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS). The first test is based on a large deviation bound for the test statistic, while the second is based on the asymptotic distribution of this statistic. The test statistic can be computed in $O(m^2)$ time. We apply our approach to a variety of problems, including attribute matching for databases using the Hungarian marriage method, where our test performs strongly. We also demonstrate excellent performance when comparing distributions over graphs, for which no alternative tests currently exist.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Gretton, A., Borgwardt, K., Rasch, M., Schölkopf, B., Smola, A. A Kernel Method for the Two-Sample-Problem In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 19, pages: 513-520, (Editors: B Schölkopf and J Platt and T Hofmann), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, 20th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), September 2007 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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An Efficient Method for Gradient-Based Adaptation of Hyperparameters in SVM Models

Keerthi, S., Sindhwani, V., Chapelle, O.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 19, pages: 673-680, (Editors: Schölkopf, B. , J. Platt, T. Hofmann), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, Twentieth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), September 2007 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We consider the task of tuning hyperparameters in SVM models based on minimizing a smooth performance validation function, e.g., smoothed k-fold cross-validation error, using non-linear optimization techniques. The key computation in this approach is that of the gradient of the validation function with respect to hyperparameters. We show that for large-scale problems involving a wide choice of kernel-based models and validation functions, this computation can be very efficiently done; often within just a fraction of the training time. Empirical results show that a near-optimal set of hyperparameters can be identified by our approach with very few training rounds and gradient computations.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Keerthi, S., Sindhwani, V., Chapelle, O. An Efficient Method for Gradient-Based Adaptation of Hyperparameters in SVM Models In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 19, pages: 673-680, (Editors: Schölkopf, B. , J. Platt, T. Hofmann), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, Twentieth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), September 2007 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]