8514244
A nonparametric hierarchical bayesian framework for information filtering
Information filtering has made considerable progress in recent years. The predominant approaches are content-based methods and collaborative methods. Researchers have largely concentrated on either of the two approaches since a principled unifying framework is still lacking. This paper suggests that both approaches can be combined under a hierarchical Bayesian framework. Individual content-based user profiles are generated and collaboration between various user models is achieved via a common learned prior distribution. However, it turns out that a parametric distribution (e.g. Gaussian) is too restrictive to describe such a common learned prior distribution. We thus introduce a nonparametric common prior, which is a sample generated from a Dirichlet process which assumes the role of a hyper prior. We describe effective means to learn this nonparametric distribution, and apply it to learn users' information needs. The resultant algorithm is simple and understandable, and offers a principled solution to combine content-based filtering and collaborative filtering. Within our framework, we are now able to interpret various existing techniques from a unifying point of view. Finally we demonstrate the empirical success of the proposed information filtering methods.
13007604
Extracting Content Structure for Web Pages Based on Visual Representation
A new web content structure based on visual representation is proposed in this paper. Many web applications such as information retrieval, information extraction and automatic page adaptation can benefit from this structure. This paper presents an automatic top-down, tag-tree independent approach to detect web content structure. It simulates how a user understands web layout structure based on his visual perception. Comparing to other existing techniques, our approach is independent to underlying documentation representation such as HTML and works well even when the HTML structure is far different from layout structure. Experiments show satisfactory results.
10350219
Multi-label informed latent semantic indexing
Latent semantic indexing (LSI) is a well-known unsupervised approach for dimensionality reduction in information retrieval. However if the output information (i.e. category labels) is available, it is often beneficial to derive the indexing not only based on the inputs but also on the target values in the training data set. This is of particular importance in applications with multiple labels, in which each document can belong to several categories simultaneously. In this paper we introduce the multi-label informed latent semantic indexing (MLSI) algorithm which preserves the information of inputs and meanwhile captures the correlations between the multiple outputs. The recovered "latent semantics" thus incorporate the human-annotated category information and can be used to greatly improve the prediction accuracy. Empirical study based on two data sets, Reuters-21578 and RCV1, demonstrates very encouraging results.
268086
Collaborative ordinal regression
Ordinal regression has become an effective way of learning user preferences, but most research focuses on single regression problems. In this paper we introduce collaborative ordinal regression, where multiple ordinal regression tasks are handled simultaneously. Rather than modeling each task individually, we explore the dependency between ranking functions through a hierarchical Bayesian model and assign a common Gaussian Process (GP) prior to all individual functions. Empirical studies show that our collaborative model outperforms the individual counterpart in preference learning applications.
946526
A Probabilistic Clustering-Projection Model for Discrete Data
For discrete co-occurrence data like documents and words, calculating optimal projections and clustering are two different but related tasks. The goal of projection is to find a low-dimensional latent space for words, and clustering aims at grouping documents based on their feature representations. In general projection and clustering are studied independently, but they both represent the intrinsic structure of data and should reinforce each other. In this paper we introduce a probabilistic clustering-projection (PCP) model for discrete data, where they are both represented in a unified framework. Clustering is seen to be performed in the projected space, and projection explicitly considers clustering structure. Iterating the two operations turns out to be exactly the variational EM algorithm under Bayesian model inference, and thus is guaranteed to improve the data likelihood. The model is evaluated on two text data sets, both showing very encouraging results.
2476670
Soft Clustering on Graphs
We propose a simple clustering framework on graphs encoding pairwise data similarities. Unlike usual similarity-based methods, the approach softly assigns data to clusters in a probabilistic way. More importantly, a hierarchical clustering is naturally derived in this framework to gradually merge lower-level clusters into higher-level ones. A random walk analysis indicates that the algorithm exposes clustering structures in various resolutions, i.e., a higher level statistically models a longer-term diffusion on graphs and thus discovers a more global clustering structure. Finally we provide very encouraging experimental results.
13332239
A Hierarchical Markov Random Field Model for Figure-Ground Segregation
To segregate overlapping objects into depth layers requires the integration of local occlusion cues distributed over the entire image into a global percept. We propose to model this process using hierarchical Markov random field (HMRF), and suggest a broader view that clique potentials in MRF models can be used to encode any local decision rules. A topology-dependent multiscale hierarchy is used to introduce long range interaction. The operations within each level are identical across the hierarchy. The clique parameters that encode the relative importance of these decision rules are estimated using an optimization technique called learning from rehearsals based on 2-object training samples. We find that this model generalizes successfully to 5-object test images, and that depth segregation can be completed within two traversals across the hierarchy. This computational framework therefore provides an interesting platform for us to investigate the interaction of local decision rules and global representations, as well as to reason about the rationales underlying some of recent psychological and neurophysiological findings related to figure-ground segregation.
28358466
On Synchronization in P Systems
The P systems were recently introduced as distributed parallel computing models of a biochemical type. Multisets of objects are placed in a hierarchical structure of membranes and they evolve according to given rules, which are applied in a synchronous manner: at each step, all objects which can evolve, from all membranes, must evolve. We consider here the case when this restriction is removed. As expected, unsynchronized systems (even using catalysts) are weaker than the synchronized ones, providing that no priority relation among rules is considered. The power of P systems is not diminished when a priority is used and, moreover, the catalysts can change their states, among two possible states for each catalyst.
14075162
Synchronization Expressions: Characterization Results and Implementation
Synchronization expressions are defined as restricted regular expressions that specify synchronization constraints between parallel processes and their semantics is defined using the synchronization languages. In this paper we survey results on synchronization languages, in particular, various approaches to obtain a characterization of this language family using closure under a set of rewriting rules. Also, we discuss the use and implementation of synchronization expressions in a programming language designed for a parallel or distributed computing environment.
329765
Unsupervised segmentation of color images
A novel technique for unsupervised learning in feature space is presented. The feature space is considered as composed of two distinct sources, "mode" and "valley", in the point of view of information theory. An entropy-based thresholding is taken to distinguish the discretized cells in the feature space. The cells labeled as "mode" are then chained to form mode areas. Thereafter a modified Akaike's information criterion is proposed to solve the cluster validity problem. After all the parameters are estimated, a labeling algorithm is developed based on the majority game theory. The method is applied to color image segmentation. The segmentation process is completely autonomous.
10375023
A Pumping Lemma for Deterministic Context-Free Languages
Abstract In this paper, we introduce a new pumping lemma and a new iteration theorem for deterministic context-free languages (DCFLs). As application of the lemma, several languages are shown not to be deterministic context-free by using this lemma. An iteration theorem for DCFLs has already been introduced by Harrison in [3]. However, the result presented in this paper is different from his. Instead of considering the pumping property of individual words, we consider the pumping property of pairs of words. The latter approach seems more natural to the DCFLs (LR(1) languages). The pumping lemma introduced in this paper also appears to be easier to understand and use. We conjecture that there exist languages that can be shown not to be DCFLs by this new result but cannot be shown by the existing one. In Section 1, we introduce the basic notations used in this paper. In Section 2, we state our pumping lemma (without a proof) and show two applications of the lemma. In Section 3, a left-part theorem for LR ( k ) grammars is introduced, which is crucial to the proof of the pumping lemma and interesting on its own right. In the last section, we prove the lemma and extend it to an iteration theorem.