Search

A self-training algorithm is a classical semi-supervised learning algorithm that uses a small number of labeled samples and a large number of unlabeled samples to train a classifier. However, the existing self-training algorithms consider only the geometric distance between data while ignoring the data distribution when calculating the similarity between samples. In addition, misclassified samples can severely affect the performance of a self-training algorithm. To address the above two problems, this paper proposes a self-training algorithm based on data editing with mass-based dissimilarity (STDEMB). First, the mass matrix with the mass-based dissimilarity is obtained, and then the mass-based local density of each sample is determined based on its k nearest neighbors. Inspired by density peak clustering (DPC), this study designs a prototype tree based on the prototype concept. In addition, an efficient two-stage data editing algorithm is developed to edit misclassified samples and efficiently select high-confidence samples during the self-training process. The proposed STDEMB algorithm is verified by experiments using accuracy and F-score as evaluation metrics. The experimental results on 18 benchmark datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed STDEMB algorithm. • Mass-based dissimilarity is used to o account for the effects of data distribution. • A prototype tree was designed to efficiently identify high confidence samples. • A two-stage data editing algorithm was developed for editing misclassified samples. • Numerous experiments were conducted to prove the performance of the proposed STDEMB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twin support vector machine (TSVM) is a practical machine learning algorithm, whereas traditional TSVM can be limited for data with outliers or noises. To address this problem, we propose a novel TSVM with the symmetric LINEX loss function (SLTSVM) for robust classification. There are several advantages of our method: (1) The performance of the proposed SLTSVM for data with outliers or noise can be improved by using the symmetric LINEX loss function. (2) The introduction of regularization term can effectively improve the generalization ability of our model. (3) An efficient iterative algorithm is developed to solve the optimization problems of our SLTSVM. (4) The convergence and time complexity of the iterative algorithm are analyzed in detail. Furthermore, our model does not involve loss function parameter, which makes our method more competitive. Experimental results on synthetic, benchmark and image datasets with label noises and feature noises demonstrate that our proposed method slightly outperforms other state-of-the-art methods on most datasets. • This paper proposes SLTSVM by introducing symmetric LIENX loss function. • An interpretable method is proposed for selecting the loss parameter. • The convergence of the designed solution algorithm are further analyzed. • Experiments show that our method is efficient for data with outliers or noises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large neural networks usually perform well for executing machine learning tasks. However, models that achieve state-of-the-art performance involve arbitrarily large number of parameters and therefore their training is very expensive. It is thus desired to implement methods with small per-iteration costs, fast convergence rates, and reduced tuning. This paper proposes a multivariate adaptive gradient descent method that meets the above attributes. The proposed method updates every element of the model parameters separately in a computationally efficient manner using an adaptive vector-form learning rate, resulting in low per-iteration cost. The adaptive learning rate computes the absolute difference of current and previous model parameters over the difference in subgradients of current and previous state estimates. In the deterministic setting, we show that the cost function value converges at a linear rate for smooth and strongly convex cost functions. Whereas in both the deterministic and stochastic setting, we show that the gradient converges in expectation at the order of O (1 / k) for a non-convex cost function with Lipschitz continuous gradient. In addition, we show that after T iterates, the cost function of the last iterate scales as O (log (T) / T) for non-smooth strongly convex cost functions. Effectiveness of the proposed method is validated on convex functions, smooth non-convex function, non-smooth convex function, and four image classification data sets, whilst showing that its execution requires hardly any tuning unlike existing popular optimizers that entail relatively large tuning efforts. Our empirical results show that our proposed algorithm provides the best overall performance when comparing it to tuned state-of-the-art optimizers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of randomized neural networks (RNNs), such as the random vector functional link network (RVFL) and extreme learning machine (ELM), is a widely accepted and efficient network method for constructing single-hidden layer feedforward networks (SLFNs). Due to its exceptional approximation capabilities, RNN is being extensively used in various fields. While the RNN concept has shown great promise, its performance can be unpredictable in imperfect conditions, such as weight noises and outliers. Thus, there is a need to develop more reliable and robust RNN algorithms. To address this issue, this paper proposes a new objective function that addresses the combined effect of weight noise and training data outliers for RVFL networks. Based on the half-quadratic optimization method, we then propose a novel algorithm, named noise-aware RNN (NARNN), to optimize the proposed objective function. The convergence of the NARNN is also theoretically validated. We also discuss the way to use the NARNN for ensemble deep RVFL (edRVFL) networks. Finally, we present an extension of the NARNN to concurrently address weight noise, stuck-at-fault, and outliers. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms a number of state-of-the-art robust RNN algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a complementary learning scheme for experience transference of unknown continuous-time linear systems is proposed. The algorithm is inspired in the complementary learning properties that exhibit the hippocampus and neocortex learning systems via the striatum. The hippocampus is modelled as pattern-separated data of a human optimized controller. The neocortex is modelled as a Q-reinforcement learning algorithm which improves the hippocampus control policy. The complementary learning (striatum) is designed as an inverse reinforcement learning algorithm which relates the hippocampus and neocortex learning models to seek and transfer the weights of the hidden expert's utility function. Convergence of the proposed approach is analysed using Lyapunov recursions. Simulations are given to verify the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use a recently developed synchronous Spiking Neural Network (SNN) model to study the problem of learning hierarchically-structured concepts. We introduce an abstract data model that describes simple hierarchical concepts. We define a feed-forward layered SNN model, with learning modeled using Oja's local learning rule, a well known biologically-plausible rule for adjusting synapse weights. We define what it means for such a network to recognize hierarchical concepts; our notion of recognition is robust, in that it tolerates a bounded amount of noise. Then, we present a learning algorithm by which a layered network may learn to recognize hierarchical concepts according to our robust definition. We analyze correctness and performance rigorously; the amount of time required to learn each concept, after learning all of the sub-concepts, is approximately O 1 η k ℓmax log (k) + 1 ɛ + b log (k) , where k is the number of sub-concepts per concept, ℓmax is the maximum hierarchical depth, η is the learning rate, ɛ describes the amount of uncertainty allowed in robust recognition, and b describes the amount of weight decrease for "irrelevant" edges. An interesting feature of this algorithm is that it allows the network to learn sub-concepts in a highly interleaved manner. This algorithm assumes that the concepts are presented in a noise-free way; we also extend these results to accommodate noise in the learning process. Finally, we give a simple lower bound saying that, in order to recognize concepts with hierarchical depth two with noise-tolerance, a neural network should have at least two layers. The results in this paper represent first steps in the theoretical study of hierarchical concepts using SNNs. The cases studied here are basic, but they suggest many directions for extensions to more elaborate and realistic cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Find the global optimal solution of the model is one promising research topic in computational intelligent community. Dependent on analogies to natural processes, the evolutionary swarm intelligent algorithms are widely used for solving global optimization problems which directed by the fitness values. In this paper, we propose one efficient fractional global learning machine (Fragmachine) which includes two stages (descending and ascending) to determine the optimal search path. The neural network model is used to approach the given fitness value. Specifically, for the descending stage, the integer gradient of the network output with respect the current location is employed to find the next descending point, while for the ascending stage, the fractional gradient is implemented to climb and escape from the local optimal point. We further propose one adaptive learning rate during training which relies on both the current gradient (integer or fractional) information and the fitness value. Finally, a series of numerical experiments verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, Fragmachine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years transfer learning has attracted much attention due to its ability to adapt a well-trained model from one domain to another. Fine-tuning is one of the most widely-used methods which exploit a small set of labeled data in the target domain for adapting the network. Including a few methods using the labeled data in the source domain, most transfer learning methods require labeled datasets, and it restricts the use of transfer learning to new domains. In this paper, we propose a fully unsupervised self-tuning algorithm for learning visual features in different domains. The proposed method updates a pre-trained model by minimizing the triplet loss function using only unlabeled data in the target domain. First, we propose the relevance measure for unlabeled data by the bagged clustering method. Then triplets of the anchor, positive, and negative data points are sampled based on the ranking violations of the relevance scores and the Euclidean distances in the embedded feature space. This fully unsupervised self-tuning algorithm improves the performance of the network significantly. We extensively evaluate the proposed algorithm using various metrics, including classification accuracy, feature analysis, and clustering quality, on five benchmark datasets in different domains. Besides, we demonstrate that applying the self-tuning method on the fine-tuned network help achieve better results. • Fully-unsupervised feature learning algorithm for neural networks. • Relevance score from the bagged clustering in random feature subspaces. • Ranking inconsistency of the relevance score and Euclidean distance for Triplet sampling. • Self-tuning neural networks from the Triplet samples. • Extensive Experiments to evaluate the self-tuning algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Multi-label learning is the problem where each instance is associated with multiple labels simultaneously. Binary Relevance (BR) is a representative algorithm for multi-label learning. However, it may suffer the class-imbalance issue especially when the label space is large. Besides, it ignores the label correlations, which is of importance to improve the performance. Moreover, labels might have positive and negative correlations in real applications, but existing methods seldom exploit the negative label correlations. In this paper, we propose a novel Cost-sensitive multi-label learning model with Positive and Negative Label pairwise correlations (CPNL), which extends BR to tackle the above issues. The kernel extension of the linear model is also provided to explore complex input–output relationships. Moreover, we adopt two accelerated gradient methods (AGM) to efficiently solve the linear and kernel models. Experimental results show that our approach CPNL achieves a competitive performance to some state-of-the-art approaches for multi-label learning. Highlights • We propose a novel cost-sensitive multi-label learning model with positive and negative label pairwise correlations. • We introduce a new regularizer to exploit the negative label pairwise correlations. • Kernel extension of the linear model is provided to explore nonlinear input–output relationships. • Two accelerated gradient methods (AGM) are adopted to efficiently solve the linear and kernel model. • Extensive experiments have verified the effectiveness of our proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The focus of this paper is to propose a hybrid neural network model for associative recall of analog and digital patterns. This hybrid model consists of self-feedback neural network structures (SFNN) in parallel with generalized regression neural networks (GRNN). Using a new one-shot learning algorithm developed in the paper, pattern representations are first stored as the asymptotically stable fixed points of the SFNN. Then in the retrieving process, each pattern is applied to the GRNN to make the corresponding initial condition and to initiate the dynamical equations of the SFNN that should in turn output the corresponding representation. In this way, the corresponding stored patterns are retrieved even under high noise degradation. Moreover, contrary to many associative memories, the proposed hybrid model is without any spurious attractors and can store both binary and real-value patterns without any preprocessing. Several simulations confirm the theoretical analyses of the model. Results indicate that the performance of the hybrid model is better than that of recurrent associative memory and competitive with other classes of networks. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper considers the loopy belief propagation (LBP) algorithm applied to Gaussian graphical models. It is known for Gaussian belief propagation that, if LBP converges, LBP computes the exact posterior means but incorrect variances. In this paper, we analytically derive the posterior variances for some special structured graphs and clarify the accuracy of LBP. For the graphs of a single cycle, we derive a rigorous solution for the posterior variances and thereby find the quantity that determines the accuracy of LBP. Based on this result, we state a necessary condition for LBP convergence. The quantity above also plays an important role in graphs of a single cycle with arbitrary trees. For arbitrary topological graphs, we consider the situation where correlations between any pair of nodes are comparatively small and show analytically the principal values that determine the accuracy of LBP. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

For a domain adaptation learning problem, how to minimize the distribution mismatch between different domains is one of key challenges. In real applications, it is reasonable to obtain an optimal latent space for both domains so as to reduce the domain distribution discrepancy as much as possible. We therefore propose in this paper a Robust Latent Regression (RLR) framework with discriminative regularization by uncovering a compact and more informative latent space as well as leveraging the source domain knowledge, which learns a discriminative representation of domain data by considering the recognition task in the procedure of domain adaptation learning. On the one hand, to leverage the prior information in the source domain, RLR incorporates both the source and target classification loss functions as parts of its objective function, and simultaneously trains these two classifiers by encoding the common components of the classifier models as a low-rank regularization term, thus exploiting the discriminative information shared by different domains. On the other hand, to guarantee that the latent space is more compact and discriminative, the intrinsic geometric structure of data, and the local and global structural consistencies over labels are exploited simultaneously and incorporated into RLR. Lastly, to make our algorithm robust to the outliers and noise, we additionally introduce the l 2 , 1 -norm into the loss function. To solve the proposed problem, an effective iterative algorithm is proposed. Extensive experiments are conducted on several visual datasets and the results show that the proposed approach achieves outstanding performance for almost all learning tasks compared with several representative algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that the support vector machine (SVM) is an effective learning algorithm. The alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) algorithm has emerged as a powerful technique for solving distributed optimisation models. This paper proposes a distributed SVM algorithm in a master–slave mode (MS-DSVM), which integrates a distributed SVM and ADMM acting in a master–slave configuration where the master node and slave nodes are connected, meaning the results can be broadcasted. The distributed SVM is regarded as a regularised optimisation problem and modelled as a series of convex optimisation sub-problems that are solved by ADMM. Additionally, the over-relaxation technique is utilised to accelerate the convergence rate of the proposed MS-DSVM. Our theoretical analysis demonstrates that the proposed MS-DSVM has linear convergence, meaning it possesses the fastest convergence rate among existing standard distributed ADMM algorithms. Numerical examples demonstrate that the convergence and accuracy of the proposed MS-DSVM are superior to those of existing methods under the ADMM framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graph-based algorithms have been successfully applied in machine learning and data mining tasks. A simple but, widely used, approach to build graphs from vector-based data is to consider each data instance as a vertex and connecting pairs of it using a similarity measure. Although this abstraction presents some advantages, such as arbitrary shape representation of the original data, it is still tied to some drawbacks, for example, it is dependent on the choice of a pre-defined distance metric and is biased by the local information among data instances. Aiming at exploring alternative ways to build graphs from data, this paper proposes an algorithm for constructing a new type of graph, called Attribute-based Decision Graph–AbDG . Given a vector-based data set, an AbDG is built by partitioning each data attribute range into disjoint intervals and representing each interval as a vertex. The edges are then established between vertices from different attributes according to a pre-defined pattern. Classification is performed through a matching process among the attribute values of the new instance and AbDG. Moreover, AbDG provides an inner mechanism to handle missing attribute values, which contributes for expanding its applicability. Results of classification tasks have shown that AbDG is a competitive approach when compared to well-known multiclass algorithms. The main contribution of the proposed framework is the combination of the advantages of attribute-based and graph-based techniques to perform robust pattern matching data classification, while permitting the analysis the input data considering only a subset of its attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The extreme learning machine (ELM) has attracted increasing attention recently with its successful applications in classification and regression. In this paper, we investigate the generalization performance of ELM-based ranking. A new regularized ranking algorithm is proposed based on the combinations of activation functions in ELM. The generalization analysis is established for the ELM-based ranking (ELMRank) in terms of the covering numbers of hypothesis space. Empirical results on the benchmark datasets show the competitive performance of the ELMRank over the state-of-the-art ranking methods. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Selection of the optimal neural architecture to solve a pattern classification problem entails to choose the relevant input units, the number of hidden neurons and its corresponding interconnection weights. This problem has been widely studied in many research works but their solutions usually involve excessive computational cost in most of the problems and they do not provide a unique solution. This paper proposes a new technique to efficiently design the MultiLayer Perceptron (MLP) architecture for classification using the Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) algorithm. The proposed method provides a high generalization capability and a unique solution for the architecture design. Moreover, the selected final network only retains those input connections that are relevant for the classification task. Experimental results show these advantages. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper introduces a granular neural network framework for evolving fuzzy system modeling from fuzzy data streams. The evolving granular neural network (eGNN) is able to handle gradual and abrupt parameter changes typical of nonstationary (online) environments. eGNN builds interpretable multi-sized local models using fuzzy neurons for information fusion. An online incremental learning algorithm develops the neural network structure from the information contained in data streams. We focus on trapezoidal fuzzy intervals and objects with trapezoidal membership function representation. More precisely, the framework considers triangular, interval, and numeric types of data to construct granular fuzzy models as particular arrangements of trapezoids. Application examples in classification and function approximation in material and biomedical engineering are used to evaluate and illustrate the neural network usefulness. Simulation results suggest that the eGNN fuzzy modeling approach can handle fuzzy data successfully and outperforms alternative state-of-the-art approaches in terms of accuracy, transparency and compactness. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper describes a redundant robot arm that is capable of learning to reach for targets in space in a self-organized fashion while avoiding obstacles. Self-generated movement commands that activate correlated visual, spatial and motor information are used to learn forward and inverse kinematic control models while moving in obstacle-free space using the Direction-to-Rotation Transform (DIRECT). Unlike prior DIRECT models, the learning process in this work was realized using an online Fuzzy ARTMAP learning algorithm. The DIRECT-based kinematic controller is fault tolerant and can handle a wide range of perturbations such as joint locking and the use of tools despite not having experienced them during learning. The DIRECT model was extended based on a novel reactive obstacle avoidance direction (DIRECT-ROAD) model to enable redundant robots to avoid obstacles in environments with simple obstacle configurations. However, certain configurations of obstacles in the environment prevented the robot from reaching the target with purely reactive obstacle avoidance. To address this complexity, a self-organized process of mental rehearsals of movements was modeled, inspired by human and animal experiments on reaching, to generate plans for movement execution using DIRECT-ROAD in complex environments. These mental rehearsals or plans are self-generated by using the Fuzzy ARTMAP algorithm to retrieve multiple solutions for reaching each target while accounting for all the obstacles in its environment. The key aspects of the proposed novel controller were illustrated first using simple examples. Experiments were then performed on real robot platforms to demonstrate successful obstacle avoidance during reaching tasks in real-world environments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper we present a new variant of the online real time recurrent learning algorithm proposed by . Whilst the original algorithm utilises gradient information to guide the search towards the minimum training error, it is very slow in most applications and often gets stuck in local minima of the search space. It is also sensitive to the choice of learning rate and requires careful tuning. The new variant adjusts weights by moving to the tangent planes to constraint surfaces. It is simple to implement and requires no parameters to be set manually. Experimental results show that this new algorithm gives significantly faster convergence whilst avoiding problems like local minima. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Data mining is based on data files which usually contain errors in the form of missing values. This paper focuses on a methodological framework for the development of an automated data imputation model based on artificial neural networks. Fifteen real and simulated data sets are exposed to a perturbation experiment, based on the random generation of missing values. These data set sizes range from 47 to 1389 records. A perturbation experiment was performed for each data set where the probability of missing value was set to 0.05. Several architectures and learning algorithms for the multilayer perceptron are tested and compared with three classic imputation procedures: mean/mode imputation, regression and hot-deck. The obtained results, considering different performance measures, not only suggest this approach improves the quality of a database with missing values, but also the best results are clearly obtained using the Multilayer Perceptron model in data sets with categorical variables. Three learning rules (Levenberg–Marquardt, BFGS Quasi-Newton and Conjugate Gradient Fletcher–Reeves Update) and a small number of hidden nodes are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to study loss functions in multiclass classification. In classification problems, the decision function is estimated by minimizing an empirical loss function, and then, the output label is predicted by using the estimated decision function. We propose a class of loss functions which is obtained by a deformation of the log-likelihood loss function. There are four main reasons why we focus on the deformed log-likelihood loss function: (1) this is a class of loss functions which has not been deeply investigated so far, (2) in terms of computation, a boosting algorithm with a pseudo-loss is available to minimize the proposed loss function, (3) the proposed loss functions provide a clear correspondence between the decision functions and conditional probabilities of output labels, (4) the proposed loss functions satisfy the statistical consistency of the classification error rate which is a desirable property in classification problems. Based on (3), we show that the deformed log-likelihood loss provides a model of mislabeling which is useful as a statistical model of medical diagnostics. We also propose a robust loss function against outliers in multiclass classification based on our approach. The robust loss function is a natural extension of the existing robust loss function for binary classification. A model of mislabeling and a robust loss function are useful to cope with noisy data. Some numerical studies are presented to show the robustness of the proposed loss function. A mathematical characterization of the deformed log-likelihood loss function is also presented. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Minor subspace analysis (MSA) is a statistical method for extracting the subspace spanned by all the eigenvectors associated with the minor eigenvalues of the autocorrelation matrix of a high-dimension vector sequence. In this paper, we propose a self-stabilizing neural network learning algorithm for tracking minor subspace in high-dimension data stream. Dynamics of the proposed algorithm are analyzed via a corresponding deterministic continuous time (DCT) system and stochastic discrete time (SDT) system methods. The proposed algorithm provides an efficient online learning for tracking the MS and can track an orthonormal basis of the MS. Computer simulations are carried out to confirm the theoretical results. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, we consider local regression problems on high density regions. We propose a semi-supervised local empirical risk minimization algorithm and bound its generalization error. The theoretical analysis shows that our method can utilize unlabeled data effectively and achieve fast learning rate. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Potential-based reward shaping has been shown to be a powerful method to improve the convergence rate of reinforcement learning agents. It is a flexible technique to incorporate background knowledge into temporal-difference learning in a principled way. However, the question remains of how to compute the potential function which is used to shape the reward that is given to the learning agent. In this paper, we show how, in the absence of knowledge to define the potential function manually, this function can be learned online in parallel with the actual reinforcement learning process. Two cases are considered. The first solution which is based on the multi-grid discretisation is designed for model-free reinforcement learning. In the second case, the approach for the prototypical model-based R-max algorithm is proposed. It learns the potential function using the free space assumption about the transitions in the environment. Two novel algorithms are presented and evaluated. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A comparison of behavior-based and planning approaches of robot control is presented in this paper. We focus on miniature mobile robotic agents with limited sensory abilities. Two reactive control mechanisms for an agent are considered—a radial basis function neural network trained by evolutionary algorithm and a traditional reinforcement learning algorithm over a finite agent state space. The control architecture based on localization and planning is compared to the former method. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Actor–Critics constitute an important class of reinforcement learning algorithms that can deal with continuous actions and states in an easy and natural way. This paper shows how these algorithms can be augmented by the technique of experience replay without degrading their convergence properties, by appropriately estimating the policy change direction. This is achieved by truncated importance sampling applied to the recorded past experiences. It is formally shown that the resulting estimation bias is bounded and asymptotically vanishes, which allows the experience replay-augmented algorithm to preserve the convergence properties of the original algorithm. The technique of experience replay makes it possible to utilize the available computational power to reduce the required number of interactions with the environment considerably, which is essential for real-world applications. Experimental results are presented that demonstrate that the combination of experience replay and Actor–Critics yields extremely fast learning algorithms that achieve successful policies for non-trivial control tasks in considerably short time. Namely, the policies for the cart-pole swing-up [Doya, K. (2000). Reinforcement learning in continuous time and space. Neural Computation, 12(1), 219–245] are obtained after as little as 20 min of the cart-pole time and the policy for Half-Cheetah (a walking 6-degree-of-freedom robot) is obtained after four hours of Half-Cheetah time. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper introduces hybrid random fields, which are a class of probabilistic graphical models aimed at allowing for efficient structure learning in high-dimensional domains. Hybrid random fields, along with the learning algorithm we develop for them, are especially useful as a pseudo-likelihood estimation technique (rather than a technique for estimating strict joint probability distributions). In order to assess the generality of the proposed model, we prove that the class of pseudo-likelihood distributions representable by hybrid random fields strictly includes the class of joint probability distributions representable by Bayesian networks. Once we establish this result, we develop a scalable algorithm for learning the structure of hybrid random fields, which we call ‘Markov Blanket Merging’. On the one hand, we characterize some complexity properties of Markov Blanket Merging both from a theoretical and from the experimental point of view, using a series of synthetic benchmarks. On the other hand, we evaluate the accuracy of hybrid random fields (as learned via Markov Blanket Merging) by comparing them to various alternative statistical models in a number of pattern classification and link-prediction applications. As the results show, learning hybrid random fields by the Markov Blanket Merging algorithm not only reduces significantly the computational cost of structure learning with respect to several considered alternatives, but it also leads to models that are highly accurate as compared to the alternative ones. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In the Afterword to the second edition of the book “Estimation of Dependences Based on Empirical Data” by V. Vapnik, an advanced learning paradigm called Learning Using Hidden Information (LUHI) was introduced. This Afterword also suggested an extension of the SVM method (the so called SVM+ method) to implement algorithms which address the LUHI paradigm (, Sections 2.4.2 and 2.5.3 of the Afterword). See also () for further development of the algorithms. In contrast to the existing machine learning paradigm where a teacher does not play an important role, the advanced learning paradigm considers some elements of human teaching. In the new paradigm along with examples, a teacher can provide students with hidden information that exists in explanations, comments, comparisons, and so on. This paper discusses details of the new paradigm 1 [1] In this article we changed the terminology. We will call this paradigm Learning Using Privileged Information (LUPI) (instead of LUHI) since the word privilege better reflects the core idea of the new paradigm. and corresponding algorithms, introduces some new algorithms, considers several specific forms of privileged information, demonstrates superiority of the new learning paradigm over the classical learning paradigm when solving practical problems, and discusses general questions related to the new ideas. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper we propose a boosting approach to random subspace method (RSM) to achieve an improved performance and avoid some of the major drawbacks of RSM. RSM is a successful method for classification. However, the random selection of inputs, its source of success, can also be a major problem. For several problems some of the selected subspaces may lack the discriminant ability to separate the different classes. These subspaces produce poor classifiers that harm the performance of the ensemble. Additionally, boosting RSM would also be an interesting approach for improving its performance. Nevertheless, the application of the two methods together, boosting and RSM, achieves poor results, worse than the results of each method separately. In this work, we propose a new approach for combining RSM and boosting. Instead of obtaining random subspaces, we search subspaces that optimize the weighted classification error given by the boosting algorithm, and then the new classifier added to the ensemble is trained using the obtained subspace. An additional advantage of the proposed methodology is that it can be used with any classifier, including those, such as nearest neighbor classifiers, that cannot use boosting methods easily. The proposed approach is compared with standard AdaBoost and RSM showing an improved performance on a large set of 45 problems from the UCI Machine Learning Repository. An additional study of the effect of noise on the labels of the training instances shows that the less aggressive versions of the proposed methodology are more robust than AdaBoost in the presence of noise. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Autonomous learning is one of the hallmarks of human and animal behavior, and understanding the principles of learning will be crucial in order to achieve true autonomy in advanced machines like humanoid robots. In this paper, we examine learning of complex motor skills with human-like limbs. While supervised learning can offer useful tools for bootstrapping behavior, e.g., by learning from demonstration, it is only reinforcement learning that offers a general approach to the final trial-and-error improvement that is needed by each individual acquiring a skill. Neither neurobiological nor machine learning studies have, so far, offered compelling results on how reinforcement learning can be scaled to the high-dimensional continuous state and action spaces of humans or humanoids. Here, we combine two recent research developments on learning motor control in order to achieve this scaling. First, we interpret the idea of modular motor control by means of motor primitives as a suitable way to generate parameterized control policies for reinforcement learning. Second, we combine motor primitives with the theory of stochastic policy gradient learning, which currently seems to be the only feasible framework for reinforcement learning for humanoids. We evaluate different policy gradient methods with a focus on their applicability to parameterized motor primitives. We compare these algorithms in the context of motor primitive learning, and show that our most modern algorithm, the Episodic Natural Actor-Critic outperforms previous algorithms by at least an order of magnitude. We demonstrate the efficiency of this reinforcement learning method in the application of learning to hit a baseball with an anthropomorphic robot arm. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Automatic text classification is an important task for many natural language processing applications. This paper presents a neural approach to develop a text classifier based on the Learning Vector Quantization (LVQ) algorithm. The LVQ model is a classification method that uses a competitive supervised learning algorithm. The proposed method has been applied to two specific tasks: text categorization and word sense disambiguation. Experiments were carried out using the Reuters-21578 text collection (for text categorization) and the Senseval-3 corpus (for word sense disambiguation). The results obtained are very promising and show that our neural approach based on the LVQ algorithm is an alternative to other classification systems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The paper deals with the concept of relevance learning in learning vector quantization and classification. Recent machine learning approaches with the ability of metric adaptation but based on different concepts are considered in comparison to variants of relevance learning vector quantization. We compare these methods with respect to their theoretical motivation and we demonstrate the differences of their behavior for several real world data sets. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, we consider learning problems defined on graph-structured data. We propose an incremental supervised learning algorithm for network-based estimators using diffusion kernels. Diffusion kernel nodes are iteratively added in the training process. For each new node added, the kernel function center and the output connection weight are decided according to an empirical risk driven rule based on an extended chained version of the Nadaraja–Watson estimator. Then the diffusion parameters are determined by a genetic-like optimization technique. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]