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  • Imieliński–Lipski algebra

    Imieliński–Lipski algebra

    In database theory, Imieliński–Lipski algebra is an extension of relational algebra onto tables with different types of null values. It is used to operate on relations with incomplete information. Imieliński–Lipski algebras are defined to satisfy precise conditions for semantically meaningful extension of the usual relational operators, such as projection, selection, union, and join, from operators on relations to operators on relations with various kinds of "null values". These conditions require that the system be safe in the sense that no incorrect conclusion is derivable by using a specified subset F of the relational operators; and that it be complete in the sense that all valid conclusions expressible by relational expressions using operators in F are in fact derivable in this system. For example, it is well known that the three-valued logic approach to deal with null values, supported treatment of nulls values by SQL is not complete, see Ullman book. To show this, let T be: Take SQL query Q SQL query Q will return empty set (no results) under 3-valued semantics currently adopted by all variants of SQL. This is the case because in SQL, NULL is never equal to any constant – in this case, neither to “Spring” nor “Fall” nor “Winter” (if there is Winter semester in this school). NULL='Spring' will evaluate to MAYBE and so will NULL='Fall'. The disjunction MAYBE OR MAYBE evaluates to MAYBE (not TRUE). Thus Igor will not be part of the answer (and of course neither will Rohit). But Igor should be returned as the answer. Indeed, regardless what semester Igor took the Networks class (no matter what was the unknown value of NULL), the selection condition will be true. This “Igor” will be missed by SQL and the SQL answer would be incomplete according to completeness requirements specified in Tomasz Imieliński, Witold Lipski, 'Incomplete Information in Relational Databases'. It is also argued there that 3-valued logic (TRUE, FALSE, MAYBE) can never provide guarantee of complete answer for tables with incomplete information. Three algebras which satisfy conditions of safety and completeness are defined as Imielinski–Lipski algebras: the Codd-Tables algebra, the V-tables algebra and the Conditional tables (C-tables) algebra. == Codd-tables algebra == Codd-tables algebra is based on the usual Codd's single NULL values. The table T above is an example of Codd-table. Codd-table algebra supports projection and positive selections only. It is also demonstrated in [IL84 that it is not possible to correctly extend more relational operators over Codd-Tables. For example, such basic operation as join is not extendable over Codd-tables. It is not possible to define selections with Boolean conditions involving negation and preserve completeness. For example, queries like the above query Q cannot be supported. In order to be able to extend more relational operators, more expressive form of null value representation is needed in tables which are called V-table. == V-tables algebra == V-tables algebra is based on many different ("marked") null values or variables allowed to appear in a table. V-tables allow to show that a value may be unknown but the same for different tuples. For example, in the table below Gaurav and Igor order the same (but unknown) beer in two unknown bars (which may, or may not be different – but remain unknown). Gaurav and Jane frequent the same unknown bar (Y1). Thus, instead one NULL value, we use indexed variables, or Skolem constants . V-tables algebra is shown to correctly support projection, positive selection (with no negation occurring in the selection condition), union, and renaming of attributes, which allows for processing arbitrary conjunctive queries. A very desirable property enjoyed by the V-table algebra is that all relational operators on tables are performed in exactly the same way as in the case of the usual relations. === Conditional tables (c-tables) algebra === Example of conditional table (c-table) is shown below. It has additional column “con” which is a Boolean condition involving variables, null values – same as in V-tables. over the following table c-table Conditional tables algebra, mainly of theoretical interest, supports projection, selection, union, join, and renaming. Under closed-world assumption, it can also handle the operator of difference, thus it can support all relational operators. == History == Imieliński–Lipski algebras were introduced by Tomasz Imieliński and Witold Lipski Jr. in Incomplete Information in Relational Databases.

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  • Softplus

    Softplus

    In mathematics and machine learning, the softplus function is f ( x ) = ln ⁡ ( 1 + e x ) . {\displaystyle f(x)=\ln(1+e^{x}).} It is a smooth approximation (in fact, an analytic function) to the ramp function, which is known as the rectifier or ReLU (rectified linear unit) in machine learning. For large negative x {\displaystyle x} it is ln ⁡ ( 1 + e x ) = ln ⁡ ( 1 + ϵ ) ⪆ ln ⁡ 1 = 0 {\displaystyle \ln(1+e^{x})=\ln(1+\epsilon )\gtrapprox \ln 1=0} , so just above 0, while for large positive x {\displaystyle x} it is ln ⁡ ( 1 + e x ) ⪆ ln ⁡ ( e x ) = x {\displaystyle \ln(1+e^{x})\gtrapprox \ln(e^{x})=x} , so just above x {\displaystyle x} . The names softplus and SmoothReLU are used in machine learning. The name "softplus" (2000), by analogy with the earlier softmax (1989) is presumably because it is a smooth (soft) approximation of the positive part of x, which is sometimes denoted with a superscript plus, x + := max ( 0 , x ) {\displaystyle x^{+}:=\max(0,x)} . == Alternative forms == This function can be approximated as: ln ⁡ ( 1 + e x ) ≈ { ln ⁡ 2 , x = 0 , x 1 − e − x / ln ⁡ 2 , x ≠ 0 {\displaystyle \ln \left(1+e^{x}\right)\approx {\begin{cases}\ln 2,&x=0,\\[6pt]{\frac {x}{1-e^{-x/\ln 2}}},&x\neq 0\end{cases}}} By making the change of variables x = y ln ⁡ ( 2 ) {\displaystyle x=y\ln(2)} , this is equivalent to log 2 ⁡ ( 1 + 2 y ) ≈ { 1 , y = 0 , y 1 − e − y , y ≠ 0. {\displaystyle \log _{2}(1+2^{y})\approx {\begin{cases}1,&y=0,\\[6pt]{\frac {y}{1-e^{-y}}},&y\neq 0.\end{cases}}} A sharpness parameter k {\displaystyle k} may be included: f ( x ) = ln ⁡ ( 1 + e k x ) k , f ′ ( x ) = e k x 1 + e k x = 1 1 + e − k x . {\displaystyle f(x)={\frac {\ln(1+e^{kx})}{k}},\qquad \qquad f'(x)={\frac {e^{kx}}{1+e^{kx}}}={\frac {1}{1+e^{-kx}}}.} Additionally, the softplus function is equivalent to the log of the sigmoid function in the following way: − ln ⁡ ( sigmoid ( − x ) ) = − ln ⁡ ( 1 1 + e x ) = ln ⁡ ( 1 + e x ) = softplus ( x ) {\displaystyle -\ln({\text{sigmoid}}(-x))=-\ln \left({\frac {1}{1+e^{x}}}\right)=\ln \left(1+e^{x}\right)={\text{softplus}}(x)} == Related functions == The derivative of softplus is the standard logistic function: f ′ ( x ) = e x 1 + e x = 1 1 + e − x {\displaystyle f'(x)={\frac {e^{x}}{1+e^{x}}}={\frac {1}{1+e^{-x}}}} The logistic function or the sigmoid function is a smooth approximation of the rectifier, the Heaviside step function. === LogSumExp === The multivariable generalization of single-variable softplus is the LogSumExp with the first argument set to zero: L S E 0 + ⁡ ( x 1 , … , x n ) := LSE ⁡ ( 0 , x 1 , … , x n ) = ln ⁡ ( 1 + e x 1 + ⋯ + e x n ) . {\displaystyle \operatorname {LSE_{0}} ^{+}(x_{1},\dots ,x_{n}):=\operatorname {LSE} (0,x_{1},\dots ,x_{n})=\ln(1+e^{x_{1}}+\cdots +e^{x_{n}}).} The LogSumExp function is LSE ⁡ ( x 1 , … , x n ) = ln ⁡ ( e x 1 + ⋯ + e x n ) , {\displaystyle \operatorname {LSE} (x_{1},\dots ,x_{n})=\ln(e^{x_{1}}+\cdots +e^{x_{n}}),} and its gradient is the softmax; the softmax with the first argument set to zero is the multivariable generalization of the logistic function. Both LogSumExp and softmax are used in machine learning. === Convex conjugate === The convex conjugate (specifically, the Legendre transformation) of the softplus function is the negative binary entropy function (with base e). This is because (following the definition of the Legendre transformation: the derivatives are inverse functions) the derivative of softplus is the logistic function, whose inverse function is the logit, which is the derivative of negative binary entropy. Softplus can be interpreted as logistic loss (as a positive number), so, by duality, minimizing logistic loss corresponds to maximizing entropy. This justifies the principle of maximum entropy as loss minimization.

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  • Charge based boundary element fast multipole method

    Charge based boundary element fast multipole method

    The charge-based formulation of the boundary element method (BEM) is a dimensionality reduction numerical technique that is used to model quasistatic electromagnetic phenomena in highly complex conducting media (targeting, e.g., the human brain) with a very large (up to approximately 1 billion) number of unknowns. The charge-based BEM solves an integral equation of the potential theory written in terms of the induced surface charge density. This formulation is naturally combined with fast multipole method (FMM) acceleration, and the entire method is known as charge-based BEM-FMM. The combination of BEM and FMM is a common technique in different areas of computational electromagnetics and, in the context of bioelectromagnetism, it provides improvements over the finite element method. == Historical development == Along with more common electric potential-based BEM, the quasistatic charge-based BEM, derived in terms of the single-layer (charge) density, for a single-compartment medium has been known in the potential theory since the beginning of the 20th century. For multi-compartment conducting media, the surface charge density formulation first appeared in discretized form (for faceted interfaces) in the 1964 paper by Gelernter and Swihart. A subsequent continuous form, including time-dependent and dielectric effects, appeared in the 1967 paper by Barnard, Duck, and Lynn. The charge-based BEM has also been formulated for conducting, dielectric, and magnetic media, and used in different applications. In 2009, Greengard et al. successfully applied the charge-based BEM with fast multipole acceleration to molecular electrostatics of dielectrics. A similar approach to realistic modeling of the human brain with multiple conducting compartments was first described by Makarov et al. in 2018. Along with this, the BEM-based multilevel fast multipole method has been widely used in radar and antenna studies at microwave frequencies as well as in acoustics. == Physical background - surface charges in biological media == The charge-based BEM is based on the concept of an impressed (or primary) electric field E i {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} ^{i}} and a secondary electric field E s {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} ^{s}} . The impressed field is usually known a priori or is trivial to find. For the human brain, the impressed electric field can be classified as one of the following: A conservative field E i {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} ^{i}} derived from an impressed density of EEG or MEG current sources in a homogeneous infinite medium with the conductivity σ {\displaystyle \sigma } at the source location; An instantaneous solenoidal field E i {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} ^{i}} of an induction coil obtained from Faraday's law of induction in a homogeneous infinite medium (air), when transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) problems are concerned; A surface field E i {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} ^{i}} derived from an impressed surface current density J i = σ E i {\displaystyle \mathbf {J} ^{i}=\sigma \mathbf {E} ^{i}} of current electrodes injecting electric current at a boundary of a compartment with conductivity σ {\displaystyle \sigma } when transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) or deep brain stimulation (DBS) are concerned; A conservative field E i {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} ^{i}} of charges deposited on voltage electrodes for tDCS or DBS. This specific problem requires a coupled treatment since these charges will depend on the environment; In application to multiscale modeling, a field E i {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} ^{i}} obtained from any other macroscopic numerical solution in a small (mesoscale or microscale) spatial domain within the brain. For example, a constant field can be used. When the impressed field is "turned on", free charges located within a conducting volume D immediately begin to redistribute and accumulate at the boundaries (interfaces) of regions of different conductivity in D. A surface charge density ρ ( r ) {\displaystyle \rho (\mathbf {r} )} appears on the conductivity interfaces. This charge density induces a secondary conservative electric field E s {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} ^{s}} following Coulomb's law. One example is a human under a direct current powerline with the known field E i {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} ^{i}} directed down. The superior surface of the human's conducting body will be charged negatively while its inferior portion is charged positively. These surface charges create a secondary electric field that effectively cancels or blocks the primary field everywhere in the body so that no current will flow within the body under DC steady state conditions. Another example is a human head with electrodes attached. At any conductivity interface with a normal vector n {\displaystyle \mathbf {n} } pointing from an "inside" (-) compartment of conductivity σ − {\displaystyle \sigma ^{-}} to an "outside" (+) compartment of conductivity σ + {\displaystyle \sigma ^{+}} , Kirchhoff's current law requires continuity of the normal component of the electric current density. This leads to the interfacial boundary condition in the form for every facet at a triangulated interface. As long as σ ± {\displaystyle \sigma ^{\pm }} are different from each other, the two normal components of the electric field, E ± ⋅ n {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} ^{\pm }\cdot \mathbf {n} } , must also be different. Such a jump across the interface is only possible when a sheet of surface charge exists at that interface. Thus, if an electric current or voltage is applied, the surface charge density follows. The goal of the numerical analysis is to find the unknown surface charge distribution and thus the total electric field E = E i + E s {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} =\mathbf {E} ^{i}+\mathbf {E} ^{s}} (and the total electric potential if required) anywhere in space. == System of equations for surface charges == Below, a derivation is given based on Gauss's law and Coulomb's law. All conductivity interfaces, denoted by S, are discretized into planar triangular facets t m {\displaystyle t_{m}} with centers r m {\displaystyle \mathbf {r} _{m}} . Assume that an m-th facet with the normal vector n m {\displaystyle \mathbf {n} _{m}} and area A m {\displaystyle A_{m}} carries a uniform surface charge density ρ m {\displaystyle \rho _{m}} . If a volumetric tetrahedral mesh were present, the charged facets would belong to tetrahedra with different conductivity values. We first compute the electric field E m + {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} _{m}^{+}} at the point r m + δ n m {\displaystyle \mathbf {r} _{m}+\delta \mathbf {n} _{m}} , for δ → 0 + {\displaystyle \delta \rightarrow 0^{+}} i.e., just outside facet 𝑚 at its center. This field contains three contributions: The continuous impressed electric field E i {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} ^{i}} itself; An electric field of the m-th charged facet itself. Very close to the facet, it can be approximated as the electric field of an infinite sheet of uniform surface charge ρ m {\displaystyle \rho _{m}} . By Gauss's law, it is given by + ρ m / 2 ε 0 ⋅ n m {\displaystyle +\rho _{m}/2\varepsilon _{0}\cdot \mathbf {n} _{m}} where ε 0 {\displaystyle \varepsilon _{0}} is a background electrical permittivity; An electric field generated by all other facets t n {\displaystyle t_{n}} , which we approximate as point charges of charge A n ρ n {\displaystyle A_{n}\rho _{n}} at each center r n {\displaystyle \mathbf {r} _{n}} . A similar treatment holds for the electric field E m − {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} _{m}^{-}} just inside facet 𝑚, but the electric field of the flat sheet of charge changes its sign. Using Coulomb's law to calculate the contribution of facets different from t m {\displaystyle t_{m}} , we find From this equation, we see that the normal component of the electric field indeed undergoes a jump through the charged interface. This is equivalent to a jump relation of the potential theory. As a second step, the two expressions for E m ± {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} _{m}^{\pm }} are substituted into the interfacial boundary condition σ − E m − ⋅ n m = σ + E m + ⋅ n m {\displaystyle \sigma ^{-}\mathbf {E} _{m}^{-}\cdot \mathbf {n} _{m}=\sigma ^{+}\mathbf {E} _{m}^{+}\cdot \mathbf {n} _{m}} , applied to every facet 𝑚. This operation leads to a system of linear equations for unknown charge densities ρ m {\displaystyle \rho _{m}} which solves the problem: where K m = σ − − σ + σ − + σ + {\displaystyle K_{m}={\frac {\sigma ^{-}-\sigma ^{+}}{\sigma ^{-}+\sigma ^{+}}}} is the electric conductivity contrast at the m-th facet. The normalization constant ε 0 {\displaystyle \varepsilon _{0}} will cancel out after the solution is substituted in the expression for E s {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} ^{s}} and becomes redundant. == Application of fast multipole method == For modern characterizations of brain topologies with ever-increasing levels of complexity, the above system of equations for ρ m {\displaystyle \rho _{m}} is very large; it is t

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  • Rprop

    Rprop

    Rprop, short for resilient backpropagation, is a learning heuristic for supervised learning in feedforward artificial neural networks. This is a first-order optimization algorithm. This algorithm was created by Martin Riedmiller and Heinrich Braun in 1992. Similarly to the Manhattan update rule, Rprop takes into account only the sign of the partial derivative over all patterns (not the magnitude), and acts independently on each "weight". For each weight, if there was a sign change of the partial derivative of the total error function compared to the last iteration, the update value for that weight is multiplied by a factor η−, where η− < 1. If the last iteration produced the same sign, the update value is multiplied by a factor of η+, where η+ > 1. The update values are calculated for each weight in the above manner, and finally each weight is changed by its own update value, in the opposite direction of that weight's partial derivative, so as to minimise the total error function. η+ is empirically set to 1.2 and η− to 0.5. Rprop can result in very large weight increments or decrements if the gradients are large, which is a problem when using mini-batches as opposed to full batches. RMSprop addresses this problem by keeping the moving average of the squared gradients for each weight and dividing the gradient by the square root of the mean square. RPROP is a batch update algorithm. Next to the cascade correlation algorithm and the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm, Rprop is one of the fastest weight update mechanisms. == Variations == Martin Riedmiller developed three algorithms, all named RPROP. Igel and Hüsken assigned names to them and added a new variant: RPROP+ is defined at A Direct Adaptive Method for Faster Backpropagation Learning: The RPROP Algorithm. RPROP− is defined at Advanced Supervised Learning in Multi-layer Perceptrons – From Backpropagation to Adaptive Learning Algorithms. Backtracking is removed from RPROP+. iRPROP− is defined in Rprop – Description and Implementation Details and was reinvented by Igel and Hüsken. This variant is very popular and most simple. iRPROP+ is defined at Improving the Rprop Learning Algorithm and is very robust and typically faster than the other three variants.

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  • Avid Free DV

    Avid Free DV

    Avid Free DV is a non-linear editing video editing software application developed by Avid Technology. Avid introduced Free DV in January 2003 at the 2003 MacWorld Expo; the company discontinued it in September 2007. Free DV was intended to give editors a sample of the Avid interface to use in deciding whether or not to purchase Avid software, so when compared with other Avid products its features were relatively minimal. When it was available it was not limited by time or watermarking, so it could be used as a non-linear editor for as long as desired. == Comparisons == When compared with other consumer-end non-linear editors such as iMovie and Windows Movie Maker, it sported more powerful video processing tools, but lacked the ease-of-use and shallow learning curve emphasized in similar programs because it had the full interface of the professional Avid system. However, Avid did offer a number of flash-based tutorials to help new users learn how to use the program for capturing, editing, clipping, processing, and outputting audio/video, among other things. == Limitations == The limitations of Avid Free DV included that it allowed only two video and audio tracks, had fewer editing tools than other Avid products, had few import and export formats, and allowed capture and output of standard-definition DV only, via FireWire. Avid Free DV projects and media were not compatible with other Avid systems. As the name implied, Avid Free DV was available as a free download, although users were required to complete a short survey on the Avid website before they were given a download link and key. In addition to using Free DV to evaluate Avid prior to purchase, it could also act as a stepping stone for people wishing to learn to use Avid's other editing products, such as Xpress Pro, Media Composer and Symphony. While additional skills and techniques are necessary to use these professionally geared systems, the basic operation remains the same. == Operating systems == Avid Free DV was available for Windows XP and Mac OS X. The officially supported Mac OS X versions were Panther versions up to 10.3.5, and Tiger versions up to 10.4.3 only. == Supported formats == Avid Free DV supported QuickTime (MOV) and DV AVIs. == Reception == John P. Mello Jr. of The Boston Globe gave Free DV a negative review, finding the user interface obfuscatory and the process of ingesting video error-prone. He summarized: "Professional video editors who use an Avid competitor may jump at the chance to take a free look at how Avid does things. But for the merely curious, this software is a nightmare". Video Systems's Steve Mullen opined that its lack of interoperability with Avid's professional editing software contracted Avid's stated goal to entice budding video editors into buying into the company's software ecosystem.

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  • Multilinear subspace learning

    Multilinear subspace learning

    Multilinear subspace learning is an approach for disentangling the causal factor of data formation and performing dimensionality reduction. The Dimensionality reduction can be performed on a data tensor that contains a collection of observations that have been vectorized, or observations that are treated as matrices and concatenated into a data tensor. Here are some examples of data tensors whose observations are vectorized or whose observations are matrices concatenated into data tensor images (2D/3D), video sequences (3D/4D), and hyperspectral cubes (3D/4D). The mapping from a high-dimensional vector space to a set of lower dimensional vector spaces is a multilinear projection. When observations are retained in the same organizational structure as matrices or higher order tensors, their representations are computed by performing linear projections into the column space, row space and fiber space. Multilinear subspace learning algorithms are higher-order generalizations of linear subspace learning methods such as principal component analysis (PCA), independent component analysis (ICA), linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and canonical correlation analysis (CCA). == Background == Multilinear methods may be causal in nature and perform causal inference, or they may be simple regression methods from which no causal conclusion are drawn. Linear subspace learning algorithms are traditional dimensionality reduction techniques that are well suited for datasets that are the result of varying a single causal factor. Unfortunately, they often become inadequate when dealing with datasets that are the result of multiple causal factors. . Multilinear subspace learning can be applied to observations whose measurements were vectorized and organized into a data tensor for causally aware dimensionality reduction. These methods may also be employed in reducing horizontal and vertical redundancies irrespective of the causal factors when the observations are treated as a "matrix" (ie. a collection of independent column/row observations) and concatenated into a tensor. == Algorithms == === Multilinear principal component analysis === Historically, multilinear principal component analysis has been referred to as "M-mode PCA", a terminology which was coined by Peter Kroonenberg. In 2005, Vasilescu and Terzopoulos introduced the Multilinear PCA terminology as a way to better differentiate between multilinear tensor decompositions that computed 2nd order statistics associated with each data tensor mode, and subsequent work on Multilinear Independent Component Analysis that computed higher order statistics for each tensor mode. MPCA is an extension of PCA. === Multilinear independent component analysis === Multilinear independent component analysis is an extension of ICA. === Multilinear linear discriminant analysis === Multilinear extension of LDA TTP-based: Discriminant Analysis with Tensor Representation (DATER) TTP-based: General tensor discriminant analysis (GTDA) TVP-based: Uncorrelated Multilinear Discriminant Analysis (UMLDA) === Multilinear canonical correlation analysis === Multilinear extension of CCA TTP-based: Tensor Canonical Correlation Analysis (TCCA) TVP-based: Multilinear Canonical Correlation Analysis (MCCA) TVP-based: Bayesian Multilinear Canonical Correlation Analysis (BMTF) A TTP is a direct projection of a high-dimensional tensor to a low-dimensional tensor of the same order, using N projection matrices for an Nth-order tensor. It can be performed in N steps with each step performing a tensor-matrix multiplication (product). The N steps are exchangeable. This projection is an extension of the higher-order singular value decomposition (HOSVD) to subspace learning. Hence, its origin is traced back to the Tucker decomposition in 1960s. A TVP is a direct projection of a high-dimensional tensor to a low-dimensional vector, which is also referred to as the rank-one projections. As TVP projects a tensor to a vector, it can be viewed as multiple projections from a tensor to a scalar. Thus, the TVP of a tensor to a P-dimensional vector consists of P projections from the tensor to a scalar. The projection from a tensor to a scalar is an elementary multilinear projection (EMP). In EMP, a tensor is projected to a point through N unit projection vectors. It is the projection of a tensor on a single line (resulting a scalar), with one projection vector in each mode. Thus, the TVP of a tensor object to a vector in a P-dimensional vector space consists of P EMPs. This projection is an extension of the canonical decomposition, also known as the parallel factors (PARAFAC) decomposition. === Typical approach in MSL === There are N sets of parameters to be solved, one in each mode. The solution to one set often depends on the other sets (except when N=1, the linear case). Therefore, the suboptimal iterative procedure in is followed. Initialization of the projections in each mode For each mode, fixing the projection in all the other mode, and solve for the projection in the current mode. Do the mode-wise optimization for a few iterations or until convergence. This is originated from the alternating least square method for multi-way data analysis. == Code == MATLAB Tensor Toolbox by Sandia National Laboratories. The MPCA algorithm written in Matlab (MPCA+LDA included). The UMPCA algorithm written in Matlab (data included). The UMLDA algorithm written in Matlab (data included). == Tensor data sets == 3D gait data (third-order tensors): 128x88x20(21.2M); 64x44x20(9.9M); 32x22x10(3.2M);

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  • Kernel method

    Kernel method

    In machine learning, kernel machines are a class of algorithms for pattern analysis, whose best known member is the support-vector machine (SVM). These methods involve using linear classifiers to solve nonlinear problems. The general task of pattern analysis is to find and study general types of relations (for example clusters, rankings, principal components, correlations, classifications) in datasets. For many algorithms that solve these tasks, the data in raw representation have to be explicitly transformed into feature vector representations via a user-specified feature map: in contrast, kernel methods require only a user-specified kernel, i.e., a similarity function over all pairs of data points computed using inner products. The feature map in kernel machines is infinite dimensional but only requires a finite dimensional matrix from user-input according to the representer theorem. Kernel machines are slow to compute for datasets larger than a couple of thousand examples without parallel processing. Kernel methods owe their name to the use of kernel functions, which enable them to operate in a high-dimensional, implicit feature space without ever computing the coordinates of the data in that space, but rather by simply computing the inner products between the images of all pairs of data in the feature space. This operation is often computationally cheaper than the explicit computation of the coordinates. This approach is called the "kernel trick". Kernel functions have been introduced for sequence data, graphs, text, images, as well as vectors. Algorithms capable of operating with kernels include the kernel perceptron, support-vector machines (SVM), Gaussian processes, principal components analysis (PCA), canonical correlation analysis, ridge regression, spectral clustering, linear adaptive filters and many others. Most kernel algorithms are based on convex optimization or eigenproblems and are statistically well-founded. Typically, their statistical properties are analyzed using statistical learning theory (for example, using Rademacher complexity). == Motivation and informal explanation == Kernel methods can be thought of as instance-based learners: rather than learning some fixed set of parameters corresponding to the features of their inputs, they instead "remember" the i {\displaystyle i} -th training example ( x i , y i ) {\displaystyle (\mathbf {x} _{i},y_{i})} and learn for it a corresponding weight w i {\displaystyle w_{i}} . Prediction for unlabeled inputs, i.e., those not in the training set, are treated by the application of a similarity function k {\displaystyle k} , called a kernel, between the unlabeled input x ′ {\displaystyle \mathbf {x'} } and each of the training inputs x i {\displaystyle \mathbf {x} _{i}} . For instance, a kernelized binary classifier typically computes a weighted sum of similarities y ^ = sgn ⁡ ∑ i = 1 n w i y i k ( x i , x ′ ) , {\displaystyle {\hat {y}}=\operatorname {sgn} \sum _{i=1}^{n}w_{i}y_{i}k(\mathbf {x} _{i},\mathbf {x'} ),} where y ^ ∈ { − 1 , + 1 } {\displaystyle {\hat {y}}\in \{-1,+1\}} is the kernelized binary classifier's predicted label for the unlabeled input x ′ {\displaystyle \mathbf {x'} } whose hidden true label y {\displaystyle y} is of interest; k : X × X → R {\displaystyle k\colon {\mathcal {X}}\times {\mathcal {X}}\to \mathbb {R} } is the kernel function that measures similarity between any pair of inputs x , x ′ ∈ X {\displaystyle \mathbf {x} ,\mathbf {x'} \in {\mathcal {X}}} ; the sum ranges over the n labeled examples { ( x i , y i ) } i = 1 n {\displaystyle \{(\mathbf {x} _{i},y_{i})\}_{i=1}^{n}} in the classifier's training set, with y i ∈ { − 1 , + 1 } {\displaystyle y_{i}\in \{-1,+1\}} ; the w i ∈ R {\displaystyle w_{i}\in \mathbb {R} } are the weights for the training examples, as determined by the learning algorithm; the sign function sgn {\displaystyle \operatorname {sgn} } determines whether the predicted classification y ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {y}}} comes out positive or negative. Kernel classifiers were described as early as the 1960s, with the invention of the kernel perceptron. They rose to great prominence with the popularity of the support-vector machine (SVM) in the 1990s, when the SVM was found to be competitive with neural networks on tasks such as handwriting recognition. == Mathematics: the kernel trick == The kernel trick avoids the explicit mapping that is needed to get linear learning algorithms to learn a nonlinear function or decision boundary. For all x {\displaystyle \mathbf {x} } and x ′ {\displaystyle \mathbf {x'} } in the input space X {\displaystyle {\mathcal {X}}} , certain functions k ( x , x ′ ) {\displaystyle k(\mathbf {x} ,\mathbf {x'} )} can be expressed as an inner product in another space V {\displaystyle {\mathcal {V}}} . The function k : X × X → R {\displaystyle k\colon {\mathcal {X}}\times {\mathcal {X}}\to \mathbb {R} } is often referred to as a kernel or a kernel function. The word "kernel" is used in mathematics to denote a weighting function for a weighted sum or integral. Certain problems in machine learning have more structure than an arbitrary weighting function k {\displaystyle k} . The computation is made much simpler if the kernel can be written in the form of a "feature map" φ : X → V {\displaystyle \varphi \colon {\mathcal {X}}\to {\mathcal {V}}} which satisfies k ( x , x ′ ) = ⟨ φ ( x ) , φ ( x ′ ) ⟩ V . {\displaystyle k(\mathbf {x} ,\mathbf {x'} )=\langle \varphi (\mathbf {x} ),\varphi (\mathbf {x'} )\rangle _{\mathcal {V}}.} The key restriction is that ⟨ ⋅ , ⋅ ⟩ V {\displaystyle \langle \cdot ,\cdot \rangle _{\mathcal {V}}} must be a proper inner product. On the other hand, an explicit representation for φ {\displaystyle \varphi } is not necessary, as long as V {\displaystyle {\mathcal {V}}} is an inner product space. The alternative follows from Mercer's theorem: an implicitly defined function φ {\displaystyle \varphi } exists whenever the space X {\displaystyle {\mathcal {X}}} can be equipped with a suitable measure ensuring the function k {\displaystyle k} satisfies Mercer's condition. Mercer's theorem is similar to a generalization of the result from linear algebra that associates an inner product to any positive-definite matrix. In fact, Mercer's condition can be reduced to this simpler case. If we choose as our measure the counting measure μ ( T ) = | T | {\displaystyle \mu (T)=|T|} for all T ⊂ X {\displaystyle T\subset X} , which counts the number of points inside the set T {\displaystyle T} , then the integral in Mercer's theorem reduces to a summation ∑ i = 1 n ∑ j = 1 n k ( x i , x j ) c i c j ≥ 0. {\displaystyle \sum _{i=1}^{n}\sum _{j=1}^{n}k(\mathbf {x} _{i},\mathbf {x} _{j})c_{i}c_{j}\geq 0.} If this summation holds for all finite sequences of points ( x 1 , … , x n ) {\displaystyle (\mathbf {x} _{1},\dotsc ,\mathbf {x} _{n})} in X {\displaystyle {\mathcal {X}}} and all choices of n {\displaystyle n} real-valued coefficients ( c 1 , … , c n ) {\displaystyle (c_{1},\dots ,c_{n})} (cf. positive definite kernel), then the function k {\displaystyle k} satisfies Mercer's condition. Some algorithms that depend on arbitrary relationships in the native space X {\displaystyle {\mathcal {X}}} would, in fact, have a linear interpretation in a different setting: the range space of φ {\displaystyle \varphi } . The linear interpretation gives us insight about the algorithm. Furthermore, there is often no need to compute φ {\displaystyle \varphi } directly during computation, as is the case with support-vector machines. Some cite this running time shortcut as the primary benefit. Researchers also use it to justify the meanings and properties of existing algorithms. Theoretically, a Gram matrix K ∈ R n × n {\displaystyle \mathbf {K} \in \mathbb {R} ^{n\times n}} with respect to { x 1 , … , x n } {\displaystyle \{\mathbf {x} _{1},\dotsc ,\mathbf {x} _{n}\}} (sometimes also called a "kernel matrix"), where K i j = k ( x i , x j ) {\displaystyle K_{ij}=k(\mathbf {x} _{i},\mathbf {x} _{j})} , must be positive semi-definite (PSD). Empirically, for machine learning heuristics, choices of a function k {\displaystyle k} that do not satisfy Mercer's condition may still perform reasonably if k {\displaystyle k} at least approximates the intuitive idea of similarity. Regardless of whether k {\displaystyle k} is a Mercer kernel, k {\displaystyle k} may still be referred to as a "kernel". If the kernel function k {\displaystyle k} is also a covariance function as used in Gaussian processes, then the Gram matrix K {\displaystyle \mathbf {K} } can also be called a covariance matrix. == Applications == Application areas of kernel methods are diverse and include geostatistics, kriging, inverse distance weighting, 3D reconstruction, bioinformatics, cheminformatics, information extraction and handwriting recognition. == Popular kernels == Fisher kernel Graph kernels Kernel smoother Polynomial kernel Radial basis function kern

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  • Diffusion map

    Diffusion map

    Diffusion maps is a dimensionality reduction or feature extraction algorithm introduced by Coifman and Lafon which computes a family of embeddings of a data set into Euclidean space (often low-dimensional) whose coordinates can be computed from the eigenvectors and eigenvalues of a diffusion operator on the data. The Euclidean distance between points in the embedded space is equal to the "diffusion distance" between probability distributions centered at those points. Different from linear dimensionality reduction methods such as principal component analysis (PCA), diffusion maps are part of the family of nonlinear dimensionality reduction methods which focus on discovering the underlying manifold that the data has been sampled from. By integrating local similarities at different scales, diffusion maps give a global description of the data-set. Compared with other methods, the diffusion map algorithm is robust to noise perturbation and computationally inexpensive. == Definition of diffusion maps == Following and , diffusion maps can be defined in four steps. === Connectivity === Diffusion maps exploit the relationship between heat diffusion and random walk Markov chain. The basic observation is that if we take a random walk on the data, walking to a nearby data-point is more likely than walking to another that is far away. Let ( X , A , μ ) {\displaystyle (X,{\mathcal {A}},\mu )} be a measure space, where X {\displaystyle X} is the data set and μ {\displaystyle \mu } represents the distribution of the points on X {\displaystyle X} . Based on this, the connectivity k {\displaystyle k} between two data points, x {\displaystyle x} and y {\displaystyle y} , can be defined as the probability of walking from x {\displaystyle x} to y {\displaystyle y} in one step of the random walk. Usually, this probability is specified in terms of a kernel function of the two points: k : X × X → R {\displaystyle k:X\times X\rightarrow \mathbb {R} } . For example, the popular Gaussian kernel: k ( x , y ) = exp ⁡ ( − | | x − y | | 2 ϵ ) {\displaystyle k(x,y)=\exp \left(-{\frac {||x-y||^{2}}{\epsilon }}\right)} More generally, the kernel function has the following properties k ( x , y ) = k ( y , x ) {\displaystyle k(x,y)=k(y,x)} ( k {\displaystyle k} is symmetric) k ( x , y ) ≥ 0 ∀ x , y {\displaystyle k(x,y)\geq 0\,\,\forall x,y} ( k {\displaystyle k} is positivity preserving). The kernel constitutes the prior definition of the local geometry of the data-set. Since a given kernel will capture a specific feature of the data set, its choice should be guided by the application that one has in mind. This is a major difference with methods such as principal component analysis, where correlations between all data points are taken into account at once. Given ( X , k ) {\displaystyle (X,k)} , we can then construct a reversible discrete-time Markov chain on X {\displaystyle X} (a process known as the normalized graph Laplacian construction): d ( x ) = ∫ X k ( x , y ) d μ ( y ) {\displaystyle d(x)=\int _{X}k(x,y)d\mu (y)} and define: p ( x , y ) = k ( x , y ) d ( x ) {\displaystyle p(x,y)={\frac {k(x,y)}{d(x)}}} Although the new normalized kernel does not inherit the symmetric property, it does inherit the positivity-preserving property and gains a conservation property: ∫ X p ( x , y ) d μ ( y ) = 1 {\displaystyle \int _{X}p(x,y)d\mu (y)=1} === Diffusion process === From p ( x , y ) {\displaystyle p(x,y)} we can construct a transition matrix of a Markov chain ( M {\displaystyle M} ) on X {\displaystyle X} . In other words, p ( x , y ) {\displaystyle p(x,y)} represents the one-step transition probability from x {\displaystyle x} to y {\displaystyle y} , and M t {\displaystyle M^{t}} gives the t-step transition matrix. We define the diffusion matrix L {\displaystyle L} (it is also a version of graph Laplacian matrix) L i , j = k ( x i , x j ) {\displaystyle L_{i,j}=k(x_{i},x_{j})\,} We then define the new kernel L i , j ( α ) = k ( α ) ( x i , x j ) = L i , j ( d ( x i ) d ( x j ) ) α {\displaystyle L_{i,j}^{(\alpha )}=k^{(\alpha )}(x_{i},x_{j})={\frac {L_{i,j}}{(d(x_{i})d(x_{j}))^{\alpha }}}\,} or equivalently, L ( α ) = D − α L D − α {\displaystyle L^{(\alpha )}=D^{-\alpha }LD^{-\alpha }\,} where D is a diagonal matrix and D i , i = ∑ j L i , j . {\displaystyle D_{i,i}=\sum _{j}L_{i,j}.} We apply the graph Laplacian normalization to this new kernel: M = ( D ( α ) ) − 1 L ( α ) , {\displaystyle M=({D}^{(\alpha )})^{-1}L^{(\alpha )},\,} where D ( α ) {\displaystyle D^{(\alpha )}} is a diagonal matrix and D i , i ( α ) = ∑ j L i , j ( α ) . {\displaystyle {D}_{i,i}^{(\alpha )}=\sum _{j}L_{i,j}^{(\alpha )}.} p ( x j , t | x i ) = M i , j t {\displaystyle p(x_{j},t|x_{i})=M_{i,j}^{t}\,} One of the main ideas of the diffusion framework is that running the chain forward in time (taking larger and larger powers of M {\displaystyle M} ) reveals the geometric structure of X {\displaystyle X} at larger and larger scales (the diffusion process). Specifically, the notion of a cluster in the data set is quantified as a region in which the probability of escaping this region is low (within a certain time t). Therefore, t not only serves as a time parameter, but it also has the dual role of scale parameter. The eigendecomposition of the matrix M t {\displaystyle M^{t}} yields M i , j t = ∑ l λ l t ψ l ( x i ) ϕ l ( x j ) {\displaystyle M_{i,j}^{t}=\sum _{l}\lambda _{l}^{t}\psi _{l}(x_{i})\phi _{l}(x_{j})\,} where { λ l } {\displaystyle \{\lambda _{l}\}} is the sequence of eigenvalues of M {\displaystyle M} and { ψ l } {\displaystyle \{\psi _{l}\}} and { ϕ l } {\displaystyle \{\phi _{l}\}} are the biorthogonal left and right eigenvectors respectively. Due to the spectrum decay of the eigenvalues, only a few terms are necessary to achieve a given relative accuracy in this sum. ==== Parameter α and the diffusion operator ==== The reason to introduce the normalization step involving α {\displaystyle \alpha } is to tune the influence of the data point density on the infinitesimal transition of the diffusion. In some applications, the sampling of the data is generally not related to the geometry of the manifold we are interested in describing. In this case, we can set α = 1 {\displaystyle \alpha =1} and the diffusion operator approximates the Laplace–Beltrami operator. We then recover the Riemannian geometry of the data set regardless of the distribution of the points. To describe the long-term behavior of the point distribution of a system of stochastic differential equations, we can use α = 0.5 {\displaystyle \alpha =0.5} and the resulting Markov chain approximates the Fokker–Planck diffusion. With α = 0 {\displaystyle \alpha =0} , it reduces to the classical graph Laplacian normalization. === Diffusion distance === The diffusion distance at time t {\displaystyle t} between two points can be measured as the similarity of two points in the observation space with the connectivity between them. It is given by D t ( x i , x j ) 2 = ∑ y ( p ( y , t | x i ) − p ( y , t | x j ) ) 2 ϕ 0 ( y ) {\displaystyle D_{t}(x_{i},x_{j})^{2}=\sum _{y}{\frac {(p(y,t|x_{i})-p(y,t|x_{j}))^{2}}{\phi _{0}(y)}}} where ϕ 0 ( y ) {\displaystyle \phi _{0}(y)} is the stationary distribution of the Markov chain, given by the first left eigenvector of M {\displaystyle M} . Explicitly: ϕ 0 ( y ) = d ( y ) ∑ z ∈ X d ( z ) {\displaystyle \phi _{0}(y)={\frac {d(y)}{\sum _{z\in X}d(z)}}} Intuitively, D t ( x i , x j ) {\displaystyle D_{t}(x_{i},x_{j})} is small if there is a large number of short paths connecting x i {\displaystyle x_{i}} and x j {\displaystyle x_{j}} . There are several interesting features associated with the diffusion distance, based on our previous discussion that t {\displaystyle t} also serves as a scale parameter: Points are closer at a given scale (as specified by D t ( x i , x j ) {\displaystyle D_{t}(x_{i},x_{j})} ) if they are highly connected in the graph, therefore emphasizing the concept of a cluster. This distance is robust to noise, since the distance between two points depends on all possible paths of length t {\displaystyle t} between the points. From a machine learning point of view, the distance takes into account all evidences linking x i {\displaystyle x_{i}} to x j {\displaystyle x_{j}} , allowing us to conclude that this distance is appropriate for the design of inference algorithms based on the majority of preponderance. === Diffusion process and low-dimensional embedding === The diffusion distance can be calculated using the eigenvectors by D t ( x i , x j ) 2 = ∑ l λ l 2 t ( ψ l ( x i ) − ψ l ( x j ) ) 2 {\displaystyle D_{t}(x_{i},x_{j})^{2}=\sum _{l}\lambda _{l}^{2t}(\psi _{l}(x_{i})-\psi _{l}(x_{j}))^{2}\,} So the eigenvectors can be used as a new set of coordinates for the data. The diffusion map is defined as: Ψ t ( x ) = ( λ 1 t ψ 1 ( x ) , λ 2 t ψ 2 ( x ) , … , λ k t ψ k ( x ) ) {\displaystyle \Psi _{t}(x)=(\lambda _{1}^{t}\psi _{1}(x),\lambda _{2}^{t}\psi _{2}(x),\ld

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  • Multi-task learning

    Multi-task learning

    Multi-task learning (MTL) is a subfield of machine learning in which multiple learning tasks are solved at the same time, while exploiting commonalities and differences across tasks. This can result in improved learning efficiency and prediction accuracy for the task-specific models, when compared to training the models separately. Inherently, Multi-task learning is a multi-objective optimization problem having trade-offs between different tasks. Early versions of MTL were called "hints". In a widely cited 1997 paper, Rich Caruana gave the following characterization:Multitask Learning is an approach to inductive transfer that improves generalization by using the domain information contained in the training signals of related tasks as an inductive bias. It does this by learning tasks in parallel while using a shared representation; what is learned for each task can help other tasks be learned better. In the classification context, MTL aims to improve the performance of multiple classification tasks by learning them jointly. One example is a spam-filter, which can be treated as distinct but related classification tasks across different users. To make this more concrete, consider that different people have different distributions of features which distinguish spam emails from legitimate ones, for example an English speaker may find that all emails in Russian are spam, not so for Russian speakers. Yet there is a definite commonality in this classification task across users, for example one common feature might be text related to money transfer. Solving each user's spam classification problem jointly via MTL can let the solutions inform each other and improve performance. Further examples of settings for MTL include multiclass classification and multi-label classification. Multi-task learning works because regularization induced by requiring an algorithm to perform well on a related task can be superior to regularization that prevents overfitting by penalizing all complexity uniformly. One situation where MTL may be particularly helpful is if the tasks share significant commonalities and are generally slightly under sampled. However, as discussed below, MTL has also been shown to be beneficial for learning unrelated tasks. == Methods == The key challenge in multi-task learning, is how to combine learning signals from multiple tasks into a single model. This may strongly depend on how well different task agree with each other, or contradict each other. There are several ways to address this challenge: === Task grouping and overlap === Within the MTL paradigm, information can be shared across some or all of the tasks. Depending on the structure of task relatedness, one may want to share information selectively across the tasks. For example, tasks may be grouped or exist in a hierarchy, or be related according to some general metric. Suppose, as developed more formally below, that the parameter vector modeling each task is a linear combination of some underlying basis. Similarity in terms of this basis can indicate the relatedness of the tasks. For example, with sparsity, overlap of nonzero coefficients across tasks indicates commonality. A task grouping then corresponds to those tasks lying in a subspace generated by some subset of basis elements, where tasks in different groups may be disjoint or overlap arbitrarily in terms of their bases. Task relatedness can be imposed a priori or learned from the data. Hierarchical task relatedness can also be exploited implicitly without assuming a priori knowledge or learning relations explicitly. For example, the explicit learning of sample relevance across tasks can be done to guarantee the effectiveness of joint learning across multiple domains. === Exploiting unrelated tasks: Auxiliary learning === In auxiliary learning, one attempts learning a group of principal tasks using a group of auxiliary tasks, unrelated to the principal ones. With the right unrelated tasks, joint learning of unrelated tasks which use the same input data have been shown to be beneficial, and provide significant improvement over standard MTL. The reason is that prior knowledge about task relatedness can lead to sparser and more informative representations for each task grouping, essentially by screening out idiosyncrasies of the data distribution. It has been proposed to build on a prior multitask methodology by favoring a shared low-dimensional representation within each task grouping, and imposing a penalty on tasks from different groups which encourages the two representations to be orthogonal. Learning with auxiliary unrelated tasks poses two major challenges: Finding useful auxiliary tasks and combining losses of all tasks in a useful way. Some methods can learn these from data together with the training process, and combine tasks efficiently. === Transfer of knowledge === Related to multi-task learning is the concept of knowledge transfer. Whereas traditional multi-task learning implies that a shared representation is developed concurrently across tasks, transfer of knowledge implies a sequentially shared representation. Large scale machine learning projects such as the deep convolutional neural network GoogLeNet, an image-based object classifier, can develop robust representations which may be useful to further algorithms learning related tasks. For example, the pre-trained model can be used as a feature extractor to perform pre-processing for another learning algorithm. Or the pre-trained model can be used to initialize a model with similar architecture which is then fine-tuned to learn a different classification task. === Multiple non-stationary tasks === Traditionally Multi-task learning and transfer of knowledge are applied to stationary learning settings. Their extension to non-stationary environments is termed Group online adaptive learning (GOAL). Sharing information could be particularly useful if learners operate in continuously changing environments, because a learner could benefit from previous experience of another learner to quickly adapt to their new environment. Such group-adaptive learning has numerous applications, from predicting financial time-series, through content recommendation systems, to visual understanding for adaptive autonomous agents. === Multi-task optimization === Multi-task optimization focuses on solving optimizing the whole process. The paradigm has been inspired by the well-established concepts of transfer learning and multi-task learning in predictive analytics. The key motivation behind multi-task optimization is that if optimization tasks are related to each other in terms of their optimal solutions or the general characteristics of their function landscapes, the search progress can be transferred to substantially accelerate the search on the other. The success of the paradigm is not necessarily limited to one-way knowledge transfers from simpler to more complex tasks. In practice an attempt is to intentionally solve a more difficult task that may unintentionally solve several smaller problems. There is a direct relationship between multitask optimization and multi-objective optimization. In some cases, the simultaneous training of seemingly related tasks may hinder performance compared to single-task models. Commonly, MTL models employ task-specific modules on top of a joint feature representation obtained using a shared module. Since this joint representation must capture useful features across all tasks, MTL may hinder individual task performance if the different tasks seek conflicting representation, i.e., the gradients of different tasks point to opposing directions or differ significantly in magnitude. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as negative transfer. To mitigate this issue, various MTL optimization methods have been proposed. It has been reported that meta-knowledge transfer could help avoid negative transfer.Besides, the per-task gradients are combined into a joint update direction through various aggregation algorithms or heuristics. There are several common approaches for multi-task optimization: Bayesian optimization, evolutionary computation, and approaches based on Game theory. ==== Multi-task Bayesian optimization ==== Multi-task Bayesian optimization is a modern model-based approach that leverages the concept of knowledge transfer to speed up the automatic hyperparameter optimization process of machine learning algorithms. The method builds a multi-task Gaussian process model on the data originating from different searches progressing in tandem. The captured inter-task dependencies are thereafter utilized to better inform the subsequent sampling of candidate solutions in respective search spaces. ==== Evolutionary multi-tasking ==== Evolutionary multi-tasking has been explored as a means of exploiting the implicit parallelism of population-based search algorithms to simultaneously progress multiple distinct optimization tasks. By mapping all task

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  • Multi-label classification

    Multi-label classification

    In machine learning, multi-label classification or multi-output classification is a variant of the classification problem where multiple nonexclusive labels may be assigned to each instance. Multi-label classification is a generalization of multiclass classification, which is the single-label problem of categorizing instances into precisely one of several (greater than or equal to two) classes. In the multi-label problem the labels are nonexclusive and there is no constraint on how many of the classes the instance can be assigned to. The formulation of multi-label learning was first introduced by Shen et al. in the context of Semantic Scene Classification, and later gained popularity across various areas of machine learning. Formally, multi-label classification is the problem of finding a model that maps inputs x to binary vectors y; that is, it assigns a value of 0 or 1 for each element (label) in y. == Problem transformation methods == Several problem transformation methods exist for multi-label classification, and can be roughly broken down into: === Transformation into binary classification problems === The baseline approach, called the binary relevance method, amounts to independently training one binary classifier for each label. Given an unseen sample, the combined model then predicts all labels for this sample for which the respective classifiers predict a positive result. Although this method of dividing the task into multiple binary tasks may resemble superficially the one-vs.-all (OvA) and one-vs.-rest (OvR) methods for multiclass classification, it is essentially different from both, because a single classifier under binary relevance deals with a single label, without any regard to other labels whatsoever. A classifier chain is an alternative method for transforming a multi-label classification problem into several binary classification problems. It differs from binary relevance in that labels are predicted sequentially, and the output of all previous classifiers (i.e. positive or negative for a particular label) are input as features to subsequent classifiers. Classifier chains have been applied, for instance, in HIV drug resistance prediction. Bayesian network has also been applied to optimally order classifiers in Classifier chains. In case of transforming the problem to multiple binary classifications, the likelihood function reads L = ∏ i = 1 n ( ∏ k ( ∏ j k ( p k , j k ( x i ) δ y i , k , j k ) ) ) {\displaystyle L=\prod _{i=1}^{n}(\prod _{k}(\prod _{j_{k}}(p_{k,j_{k}}(x_{i})^{\delta _{y_{i,k},j_{k}}})))} where index i {\displaystyle i} runs over the samples, index k {\displaystyle k} runs over the labels, j k {\displaystyle j_{k}} indicates the binary outcomes 0 or 1, δ a , b {\displaystyle \delta _{a,b}} indicates the Kronecker delta, y i , k ∈ 0 , 1 {\displaystyle y_{i,k}\in {0,1}} indicates the multiple hot encoded labels of sample i {\displaystyle i} . === Transformation into multi-class classification problem === The label powerset (LP) transformation creates one binary classifier for every label combination present in the training set. For example, if possible labels for an example were A, B, and C, the label powerset representation of this problem is a multi-class classification problem with the classes [0 0 0], [1 0 0], [0 1 0], [0 0 1], [1 1 0], [1 0 1], [0 1 1], and [1 1 1] where for example [1 0 1] denotes an example where labels A and C are present and label B is absent. === Ensemble methods === A set of multi-class classifiers can be used to create a multi-label ensemble classifier. For a given example, each classifier outputs a single class (corresponding to a single label in the multi-label problem). These predictions are then combined by an ensemble method, usually a voting scheme where every class that receives a requisite percentage of votes from individual classifiers (often referred to as the discrimination threshold) is predicted as a present label in the multi-label output. However, more complex ensemble methods exist, such as committee machines. Another variation is the random k-labelsets (RAKEL) algorithm, which uses multiple LP classifiers, each trained on a random subset of the actual labels; label prediction is then carried out by a voting scheme. A set of multi-label classifiers can be used in a similar way to create a multi-label ensemble classifier. In this case, each classifier votes once for each label it predicts rather than for a single label. == Adapted algorithms == Some classification algorithms/models have been adapted to the multi-label task, without requiring problem transformations. Examples of these including for multi-label data are k-nearest neighbors: the ML-kNN algorithm extends the k-NN classifier to multi-label data. decision trees: "Clare" is an adapted C4.5 algorithm for multi-label classification; the modification involves the entropy calculations. MMC, MMDT, and SSC refined MMDT, can classify multi-labeled data based on multi-valued attributes without transforming the attributes into single-values. They are also named multi-valued and multi-labeled decision tree classification methods. kernel methods for vector output neural networks: BP-MLL is an adaptation of the popular back-propagation algorithm for multi-label learning. == Learning paradigms == Based on learning paradigms, the existing multi-label classification techniques can be classified into batch learning and online machine learning. Batch learning algorithms require all the data samples to be available beforehand. It trains the model using the entire training data and then predicts the test sample using the found relationship. The online learning algorithms, on the other hand, incrementally build their models in sequential iterations. In iteration t, an online algorithm receives a sample, xt and predicts its label(s) ŷt using the current model; the algorithm then receives yt, the true label(s) of xt and updates its model based on the sample-label pair: (xt, yt). == Multi-label stream classification == Data streams are possibly infinite sequences of data that continuously and rapidly grow over time. Multi-label stream classification (MLSC) is the version of multi-label classification task that takes place in data streams. It is sometimes also called online multi-label classification. The difficulties of multi-label classification (exponential number of possible label sets, capturing dependencies between labels) are combined with difficulties of data streams (time and memory constraints, addressing infinite stream with finite means, concept drifts). Many MLSC methods resort to ensemble methods in order to increase their predictive performance and deal with concept drifts. Below are the most widely used ensemble methods in the literature: Online Bagging (OzaBagging)-based methods: Observing the probability of having K many of a certain data point in a bootstrap sample is approximately Poisson(1) for big datasets, each incoming data instance in a data stream can be weighted proportional to Poisson(1) distribution to mimic bootstrapping in an online setting. This is called Online Bagging (OzaBagging). Many multi-label methods that use Online Bagging are proposed in the literature, each of which utilizes different problem transformation methods. EBR, ECC, EPS, EBRT, EBMT, ML-Random Rules are examples of such methods. ADWIN Bagging-based methods: Online Bagging methods for MLSC are sometimes combined with explicit concept drift detection mechanisms such as ADWIN (Adaptive Window). ADWIN keeps a variable-sized window to detect changes in the distribution of the data, and improves the ensemble by resetting the components that perform poorly when there is a drift in the incoming data. Generally, the letter 'a' is used as a subscript in the name of such ensembles to indicate the usage of ADWIN change detector. EaBR, EaCC, EaHTPS are examples of such multi-label ensembles. GOOWE-ML-based methods: Interpreting the relevance scores of each component of the ensemble as vectors in the label space and solving a least squares problem at the end of each batch, Geometrically-Optimum Online-Weighted Ensemble for Multi-label Classification (GOOWE-ML) is proposed. The ensemble tries to minimize the distance between the weighted prediction of its components and the ground truth vector for each instance over a batch. Unlike Online Bagging and ADWIN Bagging, GOOWE-ML utilizes a weighted voting scheme where better performing components of the ensemble are given more weight. The GOOWE-ML ensemble grows over time, and the lowest weight component is replaced by a new component when it is full at the end of a batch. GOBR, GOCC, GOPS, GORT are the proposed GOOWE-ML-based multi-label ensembles. Multiple Windows : Here, BR models that use a sliding window are replaced with two windows for each label, one for relevant and one for non-relevant examples. Instances are oversampled or undersampled according to a load factor that is kept

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  • Wake-sleep algorithm

    Wake-sleep algorithm

    The wake-sleep algorithm is an unsupervised learning algorithm for deep generative models, especially Helmholtz Machines. The algorithm is similar to the expectation-maximization algorithm, and optimizes the model likelihood for observed data. The name of the algorithm derives from its use of two learning phases, the “wake” phase and the “sleep” phase, which are performed alternately. It can be conceived as a model for learning in the brain, but is also being applied for machine learning. == Description == The goal of the wake-sleep algorithm is to find a hierarchical representation of observed data. In a graphical representation of the algorithm, data is applied to the algorithm at the bottom, while higher layers form gradually more abstract representations. Between each pair of layers are two sets of weights: Recognition weights, which define how representations are inferred from data, and generative weights, which define how these representations relate to data. == Training == Training consists of two phases – the “wake” phase and the “sleep” phase. It has been proven that this learning algorithm is convergent. === The "wake" phase === Neurons are fired by recognition connections (from what would be input to what would be output). Generative connections (leading from outputs to inputs) are then modified to increase probability that they would recreate the correct activity in the layer below – closer to actual data from sensory input. === The "sleep" phase === The process is reversed in the “sleep” phase – neurons are fired by generative connections while recognition connections are being modified to increase probability that they would recreate the correct activity in the layer above – further to actual data from sensory input. == Extensions == Since the recognition network is limited in its flexibility, it might not be able to approximate the posterior distribution of latent variables well. To better approximate the posterior distribution, it is possible to employ importance sampling, with the recognition network as the proposal distribution. This improved approximation of the posterior distribution also improves the overall performance of the model.

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  • Boosting (machine learning)

    Boosting (machine learning)

    In machine learning (ML), boosting is an ensemble learning method that combines a set of less accurate models (called "weak learners") to create a single, highly accurate model (a "strong learner"). Unlike other ensemble methods that build models in parallel (such as bagging), boosting algorithms build models sequentially. Each new model in the sequence is trained to correct the errors made by its predecessors. This iterative process allows the overall model to improve its accuracy, particularly by reducing bias. Boosting is a popular and effective technique used in supervised learning for both classification and regression tasks. The theoretical foundation for boosting came from a question posed by Kearns and Valiant (1988, 1989): "Can a set of weak learners create a single strong learner?" A weak learner is defined as a classifier that performs only slightly better than random guessing, whereas a strong learner is a classifier that is highly correlated with the true classification. Robert Schapire's affirmative answer to this question in a 1990 paper led to the development of practical boosting algorithms. The first such algorithm was developed by Schapire, with Freund and Schapire later developing AdaBoost, which remains a foundational example of boosting. == Algorithms == While boosting is not algorithmically constrained, most boosting algorithms consist of iteratively learning weak classifiers with respect to a distribution and adding them to a final strong classifier. When they are added, they are weighted in a way that is related to the weak learners' accuracy. After a weak learner is added, the data weights are readjusted, known as "re-weighting". Misclassified input data gain a higher weight and examples that are classified correctly lose weight. Thus, future weak learners focus more on the examples that previous weak learners misclassified. There are many boosting algorithms. The original ones, proposed by Robert Schapire (a recursive majority gate formulation), and Yoav Freund (boost by majority), were not adaptive and could not take full advantage of the weak learners. Schapire and Freund then developed AdaBoost, an adaptive boosting algorithm that won the prestigious Gödel Prize. Only algorithms that are provable boosting algorithms in the probably approximately correct learning formulation can accurately be called boosting algorithms. Other algorithms that are similar in spirit to boosting algorithms are sometimes called "leveraging algorithms", although they are also sometimes incorrectly called boosting algorithms. The main variation between many boosting algorithms is their method of weighting training data points and hypotheses. AdaBoost is very popular and the most significant historically as it was the first algorithm that could adapt to the weak learners. It is often the basis of introductory coverage of boosting in university machine learning courses. There are many more recent algorithms such as LPBoost, TotalBoost, BrownBoost, xgboost, MadaBoost, LogitBoost, CatBoost and others. Many boosting algorithms fit into the AnyBoost framework, which shows that boosting performs gradient descent in a function space using a convex cost function. == Object categorization in computer vision == Given images containing various known objects in the world, a classifier can be learned from them to automatically classify the objects in future images. Simple classifiers built based on some image feature of the object tend to be weak in categorization performance. Using boosting methods for object categorization is a way to unify the weak classifiers in a special way to boost the overall ability of categorization. === Problem of object categorization === Object categorization is a typical task of computer vision that involves determining whether or not an image contains some specific category of object. The idea is closely related with recognition, identification, and detection. Appearance based object categorization typically contains feature extraction, learning a classifier, and applying the classifier to new examples. There are many ways to represent a category of objects, e.g. from shape analysis, bag of words models, or local descriptors such as SIFT, etc. Examples of supervised classifiers are Naive Bayes classifiers, support vector machines, mixtures of Gaussians, and neural networks. However, research has shown that object categories and their locations in images can be discovered in an unsupervised manner as well. === Status quo for object categorization === The recognition of object categories in images is a challenging problem in computer vision, especially when the number of categories is large. This is due to high intra class variability and the need for generalization across variations of objects within the same category. Objects within one category may look quite different. Even the same object may appear unalike under different viewpoint, scale, and illumination. Background clutter and partial occlusion add difficulties to recognition as well. Humans are able to recognize thousands of object types, whereas most of the existing object recognition systems are trained to recognize only a few, e.g. human faces, cars, simple objects, etc. Research has been very active on dealing with more categories and enabling incremental additions of new categories, and although the general problem remains unsolved, several multi-category objects detectors (for up to hundreds or thousands of categories) have been developed. One means is by feature sharing and boosting. === Boosting for binary categorization === AdaBoost can be used for face detection as an example of binary categorization. The two categories are faces versus background. The general algorithm is as follows: Form a large set of simple features Initialize weights for training images For T rounds Normalize the weights For available features from the set, train a classifier using a single feature and evaluate the training error Choose the classifier with the lowest error Update the weights of the training images: increase if classified wrongly by this classifier, decrease if correctly Form the final strong classifier as the linear combination of the T classifiers (coefficient larger if training error is small) After boosting, a classifier constructed from 200 features could yield a 95% detection rate under a 10 − 5 {\displaystyle 10^{-5}} false positive rate. Another application of boosting for binary categorization is a system that detects pedestrians using patterns of motion and appearance. This work is the first to combine both motion information and appearance information as features to detect a walking person. It takes a similar approach to the Viola-Jones object detection framework. === Boosting for multi-class categorization === Compared with binary categorization, multi-class categorization looks for common features that can be shared across the categories at the same time. They turn to be more generic edge like features. During learning, the detectors for each category can be trained jointly. Compared with training separately, it generalizes better, needs less training data, and requires fewer features to achieve the same performance. The main flow of the algorithm is similar to the binary case. What is different is that a measure of the joint training error shall be defined in advance. During each iteration the algorithm chooses a classifier of a single feature (features that can be shared by more categories shall be encouraged). This can be done via converting multi-class classification into a binary one (a set of categories versus the rest), or by introducing a penalty error from the categories that do not have the feature of the classifier. In the paper "Sharing visual features for multiclass and multiview object detection", A. Torralba et al. used GentleBoost for boosting and showed that when training data is limited, learning via sharing features does a much better job than no sharing, given same boosting rounds. Also, for a given performance level, the total number of features required (and therefore the run time cost of the classifier) for the feature sharing detectors, is observed to scale approximately logarithmically with the number of class, i.e., slower than linear growth in the non-sharing case. Similar results are shown in the paper "Incremental learning of object detectors using a visual shape alphabet", yet the authors used AdaBoost for boosting. == Convex vs. non-convex boosting algorithms == Boosting algorithms can be based on convex or non-convex optimization algorithms. Convex algorithms, such as AdaBoost and LogitBoost, can be "defeated" by random noise such that they can't learn basic and learnable combinations of weak hypotheses. This limitation was pointed out by Long & Servedio in 2008. However, by 2009, multiple authors demonstrated that boosting algorithms based on non-convex optimization, such as BrownBoost, can learn from nois

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  • EasyA

    EasyA

    EasyA is a web3 technology company and education platform based in London (United Kingdom), founded in 2022 by Phil Kwok and Dom Kwok. EasyA was officially launched in 2022, focusing on web3 technologies. This community was influenced by the founders' experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and early collaborations with universities and other educational institutions. Subsequently, the community was used as a foundation for developing Web3-related initiatives, including the organisation of EasyA's first Web3 hackathon in 2022. The EasyA app has over one million users and provides educational content on various blockchain technologies. EasyA Labs is a separate initiative focused on developing products intended to improve accessibility to cryptocurrency for a broader audience.

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  • Multilinear subspace learning

    Multilinear subspace learning

    Multilinear subspace learning is an approach for disentangling the causal factor of data formation and performing dimensionality reduction. The Dimensionality reduction can be performed on a data tensor that contains a collection of observations that have been vectorized, or observations that are treated as matrices and concatenated into a data tensor. Here are some examples of data tensors whose observations are vectorized or whose observations are matrices concatenated into data tensor images (2D/3D), video sequences (3D/4D), and hyperspectral cubes (3D/4D). The mapping from a high-dimensional vector space to a set of lower dimensional vector spaces is a multilinear projection. When observations are retained in the same organizational structure as matrices or higher order tensors, their representations are computed by performing linear projections into the column space, row space and fiber space. Multilinear subspace learning algorithms are higher-order generalizations of linear subspace learning methods such as principal component analysis (PCA), independent component analysis (ICA), linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and canonical correlation analysis (CCA). == Background == Multilinear methods may be causal in nature and perform causal inference, or they may be simple regression methods from which no causal conclusion are drawn. Linear subspace learning algorithms are traditional dimensionality reduction techniques that are well suited for datasets that are the result of varying a single causal factor. Unfortunately, they often become inadequate when dealing with datasets that are the result of multiple causal factors. . Multilinear subspace learning can be applied to observations whose measurements were vectorized and organized into a data tensor for causally aware dimensionality reduction. These methods may also be employed in reducing horizontal and vertical redundancies irrespective of the causal factors when the observations are treated as a "matrix" (ie. a collection of independent column/row observations) and concatenated into a tensor. == Algorithms == === Multilinear principal component analysis === Historically, multilinear principal component analysis has been referred to as "M-mode PCA", a terminology which was coined by Peter Kroonenberg. In 2005, Vasilescu and Terzopoulos introduced the Multilinear PCA terminology as a way to better differentiate between multilinear tensor decompositions that computed 2nd order statistics associated with each data tensor mode, and subsequent work on Multilinear Independent Component Analysis that computed higher order statistics for each tensor mode. MPCA is an extension of PCA. === Multilinear independent component analysis === Multilinear independent component analysis is an extension of ICA. === Multilinear linear discriminant analysis === Multilinear extension of LDA TTP-based: Discriminant Analysis with Tensor Representation (DATER) TTP-based: General tensor discriminant analysis (GTDA) TVP-based: Uncorrelated Multilinear Discriminant Analysis (UMLDA) === Multilinear canonical correlation analysis === Multilinear extension of CCA TTP-based: Tensor Canonical Correlation Analysis (TCCA) TVP-based: Multilinear Canonical Correlation Analysis (MCCA) TVP-based: Bayesian Multilinear Canonical Correlation Analysis (BMTF) A TTP is a direct projection of a high-dimensional tensor to a low-dimensional tensor of the same order, using N projection matrices for an Nth-order tensor. It can be performed in N steps with each step performing a tensor-matrix multiplication (product). The N steps are exchangeable. This projection is an extension of the higher-order singular value decomposition (HOSVD) to subspace learning. Hence, its origin is traced back to the Tucker decomposition in 1960s. A TVP is a direct projection of a high-dimensional tensor to a low-dimensional vector, which is also referred to as the rank-one projections. As TVP projects a tensor to a vector, it can be viewed as multiple projections from a tensor to a scalar. Thus, the TVP of a tensor to a P-dimensional vector consists of P projections from the tensor to a scalar. The projection from a tensor to a scalar is an elementary multilinear projection (EMP). In EMP, a tensor is projected to a point through N unit projection vectors. It is the projection of a tensor on a single line (resulting a scalar), with one projection vector in each mode. Thus, the TVP of a tensor object to a vector in a P-dimensional vector space consists of P EMPs. This projection is an extension of the canonical decomposition, also known as the parallel factors (PARAFAC) decomposition. === Typical approach in MSL === There are N sets of parameters to be solved, one in each mode. The solution to one set often depends on the other sets (except when N=1, the linear case). Therefore, the suboptimal iterative procedure in is followed. Initialization of the projections in each mode For each mode, fixing the projection in all the other mode, and solve for the projection in the current mode. Do the mode-wise optimization for a few iterations or until convergence. This is originated from the alternating least square method for multi-way data analysis. == Code == MATLAB Tensor Toolbox by Sandia National Laboratories. The MPCA algorithm written in Matlab (MPCA+LDA included). The UMPCA algorithm written in Matlab (data included). The UMLDA algorithm written in Matlab (data included). == Tensor data sets == 3D gait data (third-order tensors): 128x88x20(21.2M); 64x44x20(9.9M); 32x22x10(3.2M);

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  • Generalized blockmodeling of binary networks

    Generalized blockmodeling of binary networks

    Generalized blockmodeling of binary networks (also relational blockmodeling) is an approach of generalized blockmodeling, analysing the binary network(s). As most network analyses deal with binary networks, this approach is also considered as the fundamental approach of blockmodeling. This is especially noted, as the set of ideal blocks, when used for interpretation of blockmodels, have binary link patterns, which precludes them to be compared with valued empirical blocks. When analysing the binary networks, the criterion function is measuring block inconsistencies, while also reporting the possible errors. The ideal block in binary blockmodeling has only three types of conditions: "a certain cell must be (at least) 1, a certain cell must be 0 and the f {\displaystyle f} over each row (or column) must be at least 1". It is also used as a basis for developing the generalized blockmodeling of valued networks.

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